CRITICISM 



ON 



GRAY'S ELEGY 



WRITTEN IN 



A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD. 



EDINBURGH, PRINTED BY JAMES BALLANTYNE AND CO. 



.CRITICISM 

ON THE 

ELEGY 

WRITTEN IN A 

COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD. 

BEING A CONTINUATION OF 

DR JOHNSON'S CRITICISM 

ON THE 

POEMS OF GRAY. 



THE SECOND EDITION. 




EDINBURGH: 

PRINTED FOR JOHN BALLANTYNE AND CO. ; AND FOR LONGMAN, 
HURST, REES, AND ORME, LONDON. 

1810. 



& 



IblO 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



lo prevent mistakes, and injustice to 
his Readers and himself, the Editor of 
the following Tract feels himself bound 
to declare, that he has no farther con- 
cern in it, than as being accidentally 
the channel through which it is convey- 
ed to the public. Having ordered, a 
few months ago, ' Irish editions of some 



* It is with concern that the editor has learnt, that this 
species of traffic, so convenient for the knights companions 
of the light purse, is so much at present on the decline, as 
to threaten (in the language of the Counter) to be speedily 
knocked up. The Irish editors have imprudently screwed 
up their prices too high : and their rivals on this side the 
water have been, of late, unusually sharp set in running 
them down, by the assistance of the Statute Book, and the 
officers of the customs. It was a sorry sight to the editor, 

A 



11 ADVERTISEMENT. 

late publications (an irregularity into 
which the high prices of town-made 
books, and the low state of his own fi- 
nances, have sometimes betrayed him, 
to the detriment of copy-hold rights, 
and " against the form of the statute in 
that case provided ;") he found the par- 
cel, on its arrival in his chambers, to be 
double-fortified with swathes of printed 
sheets ; resembling, in their general ap- 
pearance, what is known among the 



last vacation, to see the royal warehouses at the ports op- 
posite to the Irish coast, crowded with so many choice and 
famous authors, languishing in ignoble bonds, and some of 
them expiring, in defiance of magna charta, under cruel 

tortures, . . . Here lay Mrs C-th— ne M- y, new from 

the sheers and spunge, — her pure costume gothically " da- 
masked," " her silver skin laced with her golden blood/' 
— pointing to her ample gashes, and pining under the denial 

of her habeas corpus There lay the redoubted Junius, 

his body dismembered by the axe, and his quarters at the 
king's disposal, — and there the stately G-b-ns, laniatum 
corpore toto, the vehicle of his keen elocution bored through 
with a red-hot iron, &c. &c. 

Non t mild si linguae centum sint, oraque centum, 
Omnia pctnarum percurrere nomina possim ! 



ADVERTISEMENT. Ill 

trade, by the name of imperfections. 
This, being quite " selon les Regies" ex- 
cited neither curiosity nor attention ; but 
approaching, soon after, the parcel more 
nearly, for the purpose of undoing the 
twine, the wrappers were again forced 
upon his eye ; when he perceived, by 
certain cabilistical marks upon the mar- 
gins and field, and which his printer would 
laugh at him should he attempt to depict 
that what he had taken at first for im- 
perfections, were no other than proof- 
sheets, of a work apparently critical, 
and which he felicitated himself on his 
chance of feasting on, perhaps, before 
the public. He set himself accordingly 
to examine the sheets with attention ; 
and found them, not without some sur- 
prise, to contain a methodical criticism 
upon Gray's " Elegy written in a Coun- 
try Church-yard ; M executed in a man- 
ner somewhat outre, and including obser- 
vations on certain other poems of Gray, 



IV ADVERTISEMENT. 

together with allusions to certain analy- 
ses of them, preceding this particular 
criticism, but which were not to be found 
in these sheets. A sudden thought now 
entered his head, and one which some 
will perhaps think he too hastily adopt- 
ed. Having been lately reading Dr John- 
son's Criticism on Gray, (a work which 
afforded him infinite gratification,) and 
the doctors manner being then strongly 
impressed on his mind, he fancied he 
perceived a resemblance betwixt the 
style and mode of criticism displayed 
in the doctor's published strictures on 
Gray's other poems, and that adopted 
in the criticism before him. The leges 
judicandi were the same ; and the editor 
was led to fancy it possible, that the 
observations on the Elegy written in a 
Countr} r Church-yard, were composed by 
Dr Johnson, and printed off for publica~ 
tion, along with the other parts of the 
Criticism on Gray, but afterwards with- 



ADVERTISEMENT. V 

drawn ; from the suspicion that a cen- 
sure so free, of one of the most popular 
productions in the English language, 
might be ill-received by the public. Full 
of this idea, the editor formed the reso- 
lution of restoring to his fellow-readers 
what seemed to him to have been need- 
lessly taken away ; and thus of gratify- 
ing their palates with a dish that one 
meets not with every day. 

What his riper sentiments upon this 
subject are, the' editor does not choose 
to say. The public are in possession of 
the evidence, both external and internal ; 
and they are left to judge for themselves. 
It is, however, but fair to admit, that 
there are some circumstances which ap- 
pear rather unfavourable to the idea, 
that this Criticism on Gray's Elegy is 
the genuine production of Dr Johnson. 
Although it is not difficult to conceive, 
that means might have been found to 



VI ADVERTISEMENT. 

get the * proof-sheets of this work trans- 
mitted successively to Ireland (as the 
proof-sheets of other works have been, 
even in due course of post) ; and although 
the case of an % author of note, as well 
as of boldness, withdrawing a printed 
work, previous to the day of publication, 
is not without precedent in the annals of 
literature ; yet the boldness of Dr John- 
son is so colossal, and his just confidence 
in the propriety of his own taste, and the 



x The great number of proprietors (in all thirty-six " con- 
Xez") whose names, in eight files, marshalled in the form 
of the Cuneus, defend the title-page of Dr Johnson's amu- 
sing work, though calculated to strike terror in after pi- 
rates, may have even contributed to render easy the first 
trespass. Secrecy and prudence distributed among thirty- 
six men, amount to little else than names. 'Mn the mul- 
titude of counsellors there is safety :" The case does not 
apply to copy-holders. 

% It is said to be a vouched anecdote of the author of 
" Essays and Treatises on several subjects/' that he revo- 
ked and destroyed certain essays, which he had already got 
printed off, and in which he found reason to suspect that 
he had taken his ground rather hastily. 



ADVERTISEMENT. Vll 

soundness of his critical creed, so com- 
pletely inebranlable, that one may be jus- 
tified in doubting, whether it could be 
possible for him to bring himself to can- 
cel, from prudence, that which he had 
once printed off for publication. So 
stands the argument on one side ; but 
riANTi Aora Aoros isos antikeitai, * as the 
shrewd Sextus has told us. 

But, whatever may be the editor's opi- 
nion with respect to the authenticity of 
the tract now offered to the public, he 
finds himself at full liberty to acknow- 
ledge, that he has more than once re- 
pented of the resolution he had formed 
to reprint it. He soon found that the 
sheets were in some places so faint and 
blotted, and in others so erased and torn, 
that it was impossible to present it for 



1 A truism respectfully recognised in this inn. " Repli- 
cation" versus " Plea" " Sur-Reb utter" versus " Rebut- 
ter;' &c. 



V1U ADVERTISEMENT. 



publication, unless in a manuscript co- 
py, taken with much pains, and in which 
it would be necessary to call in the aid 
of conjecture, toward completing the 
sense by supplement and interpolation. 
Difficult as this appeared in prospect, 
he found it still more difficult in execu- 
tion : but, though he was often tempted 
to abandon his enterprise, a perseverance 
almost whimsical at last bore him through 
the labour he had undertaken. How he 
has acquitted himself in it, it belongs not 
to him to say. He may have committed 
mistakes ; but he has committed none 
that he possessed the means of avoiding. 
In the case of one or two proper names, 
he is not sure that he may not have sup- 
plied the defaced characters incorrectly. 
From what has been now stated, this 
tract must necessarily be supposed to 
meet the public eye, in a state somewhat 
different from that in which it came from 
the pen of its supposed author. The 



ADVERTISEMENT. IX 

characteristic peculiarities of the writer, 
and chat poignancy which distinguishes 
all his productions, must naturally be 
found in it, in a disguised and flattened 
state ; and the strictures must have lost* 
of course, " part of what Temple would 
call their race ; a word which, applied 
to wines, in its primitive sense, means 
the flavour of the soil/' * 

It was once intended to print the Cri- 
ticism in a manner resembling the edi- 
tions of Festus, which distinguish, by a 
difference of character, the unimpaired 
passages in the original, from the supple- 
ments and interpolations. But technical 
reasons were adduced against this mode ; 
to which the editor was obliged to yield, 
as he possessed not science sufficient to 
refute them. In place of this contri- 
vance he had substituted another, which 
would have equally gratified the curi- 



1 Johnson. — Life of Pope* 



X ADVERTISEMENT. 

osity of the lovers of the imitative arts, 
for whose entertainment this publication 
was meant. In imitation of Mr Brooke 
Boothby, 1 he meant to have deposited 
the original in the British Museum, for 
the inspection of the curious. But, alas ! 
the late dreadful conflagration, which 
extended itself, in part, to his chambers, 
deprived him of the power of executing 
what he had planned. The zeal and ac- 
tivity of friends, which saved all his va- 
luable property, overlooked these dirty 
sheets. The editor soon after saw their 
remains. They had died a gentle death. 
The flame seemed just to have reached 
them at the time its violence was spent; 
for they lay, undissipated, in a drawer 
half open, and which was little rnore than 
singed. The characters were in part le- 
gible, being marked in a pale white, 
spreading over a livid ground ; at once 



See Preface to " Rousseau Juge de Jean Jaques. 



ADVERTISEMENT. XI 

furnishing a proof of identity, and claim- 
ing a joint appropriation of the charac- 
ter which the poet had applied exclusive- 
ly to man : 

" Even in our ashes live their wonted fires." 
Lincoln s Inn, 15th Jan, 1783. 



ELEGY 



WRITTEN IN A 



COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD. 



The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,* 
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea; 
The plowman homeward plods his weary way, 
And leaves the world to darkness and to me, 



* — - The knell of parting day,] 

Squilla di lontano, 

Che paia 'lgiorno pianger, che si muore. 

Dante, Purgat. 1. §, 



2 CRITICISM 

IL 

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the 

sight, 
And all the air a solemn stillness holds ; 
Save where the beetle wheels his drony flighty 
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds ; 

III. 

Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower, 
The moping owl does to the moon complain 
Of such, as, wand'ring near her secret bower, 
Molest her ancient, solitary reign. 

IV. 

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's 

shade, 
Whereheaves the turf inmanyamoukTringheap, 
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, 
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 

V. 

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, 
The swallow twittering from the straw- built shed. 
The cock's shrill clarion, and the echoing horn, 
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed 



on gray's elegy. 



VI. 

For them no more the blazing hearth shall 

burn, 
Or busy housewife ply her evening care; 
No children run to lisp their sire's return, 
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. 

VII. 

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield ; 
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke : 
How jocund did they drive their team afield 1 
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy 
stroke ! 

VIII. 

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 
Their homely- joys, and destiny obscure ; 
Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, 
The short and simple annals of the poor. 

IX. 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
And all that beauty, all that wealth e er gave, 
Await alike th' inevitable hour : 
The path of glory leads out to the grave. 



4 CRITICISM 

X. 

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, 
If mem 'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise ; 
Where, through the long-drawn aisle and fret- 
ted vault, 
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise^ 

XL 

Can storied urn, or animated bust, 
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? 
Gan honour's voice provoke the silent dust ? 
Or flattery sooth the dull cold ear of death ? 

XII. 

Perhaps, in this neglected spot, is laid 
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ; 
Hands that the rod of empire might have 

sway'd, 
Or wak'd to ecstacy the living lyre. 

XIII. 

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll; 
Chill penury repress'd their noble rage, 
And froze the genial current of the soul ! 

11 



on gray's elegy, 



XIV. 
Full many a gem of purest ray serene 
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear; 
Full maiiy a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desart air. 

XV. 

Some village Hampden that, with dauntless 

breast, 
The little tyrant of his fields withstood ; 
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest ; 
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. 

XVI. 

Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, 
The threats of pain and ruin to despise, 
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, 
And read their history in a nation's eyes, 

XVII. 

Their lot forbad : nor circumscrib'd alone 
Their growing virtues, but their crimes con- 
fined: 
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne, 
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind ; 

B 



. 6 CRITICISM 

XVIII. 

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, 
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 
Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride, 
With incense kindled at the muse's flame. 

XIX. 

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, 
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray : 
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life 
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 

XX. 

Yet even these bones from insult to protect, 

Some frail memorial still erected nigh, 

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture 

deck'd, 
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 

XXI. 

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unlettered 

muse, 
The place of fame and elegy supply ; 
And many a holy text around she strews, 
That teach the rustic moralist to die. 



ON GRAYS ELEGY. 7 

XXII. 

For who, to dumb forget fulness a prey, 
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, 
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, 
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind ? 

XXIII. 

On some fond breast the parting soul relies, 
Some pious drops the closing eye requires : 
Even from the grave the voice of nature cries ; 
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires. 1 

XXIV. 

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd 

dead, 
Do'st in these lines their artless tale relate ; 
If, chance, by lonely contemplation led, 
Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate ; 



Even in our ashes live their wontedjires.'} 

Ch'i veggio nel pensier, dolce mio fuoco, 
Fredda una lingua, et due begli occhi chiusi, 
Rimaner dopo noi pien di faville. 

Petr. Son, 169. 



CRITICISM 



XXV. 



Haply, some hoary-headed swain may say, 
" Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn, 
" Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, 
" To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. 

XXVI. 

" There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 
" That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, 
" His listless length at noontide would he 

stretch, 
si And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 

XXVII. 

" Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, 
" Mutt'ring his wayward fancies, he would rove ; 
<c Now drooping, woeful, wan, like one forlorn, 
" Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless 
love. 

XXVIII. 

" One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, 
" Along the heath, and near his favourite tree : 
< Another came 5 nor yet beside the rill, 
" Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he. 



ON GRAY S ELEGY. 9 

XXIX. 

e( The next, with dirges due, in sad array, 

" Slow through the church- way path we saw 

(e him borne. 
" Approach and read (for thou can'st read) the 

lay, 
" Grav'd on his stone beneath yon aged thorn.' 5 



THE EPITAPH. 

XXX. 

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, 
A youth to fortune, and to fame unknown : 
Fair science frown'd not on his humble birth y 
And melancholy mark'd him for her own. 

XXXI. 

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere ; 
Heav'n did a recompence as largely send : 
He gave to misery all he had, — a tear ; 
He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a 
Friend* 



10 CRITICISM, &C. 

XXXII. 

No farther seek his merits to disclose, 
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, 
(There they alike in trembling hope repose,) ' 
The bosom of his Father, and his God. 



* {There they alike in trembling hope repose.)] 

— — paventosa speme. Pbtr. Son. 114. 



[ ii 3 



CRITICISM, &c. 



My process has brought me at last to 
the far-famed " Elegy written in a Coun- 
try Church-yard/' Of this Elegy, caution 
seems to dictate, that censure should say 
but little^ where praise has said so much. 
Even obstinacy is content to admit it to 
be possessed of the presumptive claim to 
commendation, which is derived from 
popularity. Literary history furnishes 
not many instances, where the anxieties 
of authors have been fully removed, be- 
fore the public was in possession of their 
work. Yet such was the case in the in- 
stance before us. The favourable opi- 



12 CRITICISM 

nion of the world, with respect to this 
poem, was ascertained whilst it was yet 
in the birth ; and attention was roused 
by repeated whispers, about a noble 
elegiac production, circulating among a 
few confidential friends, and of whose 
author it was said (in the cant usual on 
such occasions) that the diffidence with- 
held it from the public eye. In such si- 
tuations there are never wanting encou- 
ragers, to cocker and spirit up the mo- 
dest author ; who yields at last to impor- 
tunity, and the dread of a mutilated and 
surreptitious publication. It is, however, 
but fair to confess, that, on this occasion, 
the solicitations of Gray's friends were 
not merely complimental. The recital 
of certain brilliant stanzas had secured 
approbation to the whole. Praise in this 
instance preceded publication, as in some 
other instances he found it follow far be- 
hind ; and Gray felt himself in a situa- 

13 



ON GRAY S ELEGY. 13 

tion singular among authors ; not solicit- 
ing public favour, but solicited to ac- 
cept it. 

The " Elegy written in a Country 
Church-yard" has become a staple in 
English poetry. It is even beginning 
to get into years. Of those that now 
frequent the haunts of them that make 
verses, or that judge of them, the great- 
er part remember not the time when it 
was not recited with approbation : and, 
when a few laggers, who witnessed its 
first introduction, and heard now and 
then a tone of dissent interrupting the 
notes of admiration, shall have " fretted 
their hour/' and gone away, the custom 
of praising it will be entitled to. the de- 
nomination of a good custom, which, in 
criticism as well as law, holds of prescrip- 
tion ; being " That whereof the memory 
of man runneth not to the contrary/' 

Though the curiosity of the public had 
done nothing to push forward this Elegy, 



14 CRITICISM 

sagacity might easily have foreseen its 
success. Meditation upon death is, and 
ever has been, the occasional business, 
or pastime, of mankind ; and, though, 
like devotion, it cannot admit of the su* 
blimer flights of poetry, yet, when the 
mind has fairly clung to the subject, 
with its sensibilities awakened, and their 
expressions within call, nothing that is 
thus produced will be totally void of in- 
terest. The views, if not striking from 
novelty, will be commanding from se- 
riousness : and even mediocrity in the 
sentiment will be a passport to general 
correspondence. 

The delusion too under which Gray 
laboured, that his character was a pen- 
sive one, and which, though not perma- 
nent, was periodical, seems to have lent 
its aid towards fitting him for composi- 
tions of this kind. The frequent recur- 
rence of any propensity leads, by sure 
steps, to the final adjustment of the cha- 



on gray's elegy. IS 

racter ; and even when the propensity is 
ideal, the repetition of the fits will, in the 
end, invest fancy with the habitudes of 
nature. Whatever part self-deception or 
affectation may have originally had in 
the matter, Gray became, at length, 
bona Jide, a melancholy man. The fea- 
tures of his mind plied gradually to the 
cast of the mould his imagination had 
formed for it. Of the language of the 
feeling he became possessed of a compe- 
tent portion, as well as of its modes, to 
which, on several occasions, he gave ex- 
pression ; and on none more remarkably, 
than in composing the Elegy under con- 
sideration. 

If, in establishing the fortune of lite- 
rary productions, popularity established 
also their worth, criticism would find her- 
self rid of one of the most unpleasing, as 
well as unprofitable, of her tasks. But 
this is not the case. The maxim " Vox 
Populi, &c." taken in its full range, is 



16 CRITICISM 

not more destructive to good govern- 
ment, than hurtful to sound criticism. 
To examine the Elegy written in a Coun- 
try Church-yard, so as to rest its merits 
upon firm ground, its popularity should 
be kept out of view. Of such an exa- 
mination the object is not to discover 
what has been said, but what may be 
said justly. Criticism acts not in the 
character of Recorder, but of Judge. 
It is not her business to engross deci- 
sions, but to dictate them. 

Of this Elegy I find little in the " Ge- 
neral Design/' either to praise or to blame. 
It differs in nothing material from the ge- 
neral design of all Meditations on Death, 
from Boyle to Hervey inclusive. The 
subject has the advantage of being inte- 
resting, but the disadvantage of being 
common. The reader attends to it from 
motives of duty as well as of interest. So 
does also the writer ; though he soon 
finds that piety confers not poetic in- 



. 17 

spiration, and that sublimity is not the 
necessary offspring of a serious frame. 
The paucity of the topics precludes cir- 
cumvagation ; and the innovelty of the 
views represses effusion. The subject is 
already as great as it can be made : and 
of decoration the execution would be 
difficult, and the experiment attended 
with danger. 

Of the " Particular Plan/' criticism 
withholds the censure, until she shall 
have ascertained the conception. Per- 
haps the author had no particular plan 
at all. A number of different views of 
the subject, all of them serious, most of 
them common, and many of them inte- 
resting, are collected from different quar- 
ters, and thrown together in that incon- 
secutive train, in which men meditate, 
when they meditate for themselves. " Ihi 
hcec incondita solus." Like Virgil's Cory don 
(who is deprived of our sympathy from 
the baseness of his passion, as the poet 



18 CRITICISM 

is of his praise, from degrading his soli- 
loquy into a pastoral) the Meditator in 
the Country Church-yard is supposed to 
touch on the different topics as they arise 
to his mind, not prescribing the law of 
succession, but receiving it. 

Of poets who had wrought on the sub- 
ject before him, either incidentally or from 
purpose, he seems to have followed no 
one completely as a model, but to have 
gathered occasionally from all. Parneirs 
" Night-Piece" seems to have been most 
in his eye : though of Parnell the scheme 
is, in much, different from that of Gray. 
From Milton's " Pe?iseroso" too he has 
taken several hints ; and, what may ap- 
pear surprising, some even from his " Al- 
legro" From Thomson and Collins he 
has been furnished with many images ; 
and some thoughts are borrowed from 
Pope. Materials, brought together from 
so many different quarters, may be ex- 
pected to form an heterogeneous whole. 



on gray's elegy. 19 

Adherence is not solidity : and we look 
not for rigorous unity in cento. 

Of the " versification" I delay the 
strict examination, until my process shall 
have brought me to the particular pas- 
sages that suggest it. Only, in general, 
it may be doubted, whether the Quatrain, 
with alternate rhymes, has that connec- 
tion with the Elegiac strain that many 
poets and some critics have conceived. 
Dryden, who was eminent in both cha- 
racters, is so clearly of opinion that it is 
the most magnificent of English mea- 
sures, that one is apt to wonder how it 
should have first been thought of as a 
vehicle for a species of poetry, of which 
the character is gentleness and tenuity. 
It is the stanza adopted by Hammond. 
But the credit of Hammond's poetry 
was not of magnitude sufficient to give 
a classical stamp to any kind of versifi- 
cation. Mr Mason thought more favour- 
ably of his friend's authority ; and, by 



£0 CRITICISM 

his advice, Gray was prevailed on to use 
the quatrain, that the merit and eminence 
of this poem might secure to elegy the 
exclusive and undisturbed possession of 
that measure. 

Such was the idea of Mr Mason, of 
whose sagacity in foreseeing events, the 
reader, from his success in this, may form 
no unfavourable idea. Yet of this mea- 
sure it may be said with truth, that it 
brings with it no momentous accession 
to the powers of English versification. 
It possesses all the imperfections of blank 
verse, acquired with all the labour of 
rhyme. The coincidences of termina- 
ting sound, by being alternate, admit of 
an interruption by which they are either 
lost, or found at the expence of a labour 
greater than the gratification they bring : 
and the stanza, by being limited to a cer- 
tain definite compass, either forces the 
poet to end his thought abruptly, or to 
eke it out with supplemental and exple- 



on gray's ELEGY. £1 

tive matter, always weakening expres- 
sion, and rarely concealing distress. It 
is somewhat surprising that blank verse, 
improper in almost all other subjects, 
should not have been generally thought 
of as a vehicle for that species of excur- 
sive thinking which prevails so much in 
the elegiac strain. Young has used it 
with success in his great work, which, 
in diffusion and desultoriness, approaches 
to the nature of the Elegy. 

Criticism never feels herself more keen- 
ly affected, under the sense of humiliation, 
than when she is laid under the necessity 
of extending her strictures to margins and 
title-pages. Yet circumstances will, at 
times, occur, to make such degradation 
indispensable. Of the poem now under 
consideration, the title might have esca- 
ped censure, had it not been originally 
different from what it now is ; and had 
not the author persuaded himself to sup- 
pose, that, when he altered it, he mend- 



%% CRITICISM 

ed it of course. It is seldom that the 
change of a title is a happy change. If 
it has had a seat in the imagination pre- 
vious to the operation of composing, or 
even during its progress, it has consider- 
ably influenced the execution. It has 
so led and regulated the train of think- 
ing, and the mutual dependencies, that 
the slightest after-deviation from it is in 
danger of creating inconsistency. It in- 
troduces a species of confusion and in- 
consequence, like that which was intro- 
duced into the Dunciad, when Pope, at 
the instigation of Warburton, 1 changed 
the hero of that piece ; and which, the 
poet and his Mentor, who kept botch- 
ing it during the whole of their lives/ 



1 Bowyer. — It is to be hoped that the executors of this 
gentleman will take some method of preventing from pe- 
rishing the much curious information which his profession 
and industry enabled him to collect. 

* Pope did not long survive the change. In the private 
corrections of Warburton, I find little that can create re- 



on gray's elegy. 23 

were not able to remove ; though the la- 
bour of Procrustes was doubled, and 
both the tortured and instruments of 
torture were racked to produce accom- 
modation. 

Gray has more than once been unfor- 
tunate in his fancy of changing his titles. 
He had composed an Ode, to which he 
gave the title of " Noon-Tide" Falling 
out of humour with this title afterwards, 
for what reason does not appear, he 1 new- 
named it an " Ode on Spring" Noon- 
tide, however, was in his imagination, 
when he wrote it ; and it is an Ode on 
Noon-tide still. . 

u Reflections in a Country Church- 
yard" was * the title by which this piece 
was first known ; a title plain, sober, and 
expressive of its nature; but too undig- 



gr-et for that precaution of the poet, which prevented them 
from being made public. 

1 Mason. * Mason. 



34 CRITICISM 

nified in the apprehension of its author, 
who persuaded himself to think " Elegy" 
a finer name. He should, however, have 
considered that, in adopting the new ti- 
tle, he subjected himself to severer rules 
of criticism than before ; and shut him- 
self out from many pleas, in defence or 
palliation of its desultory style, which 
would have been open to him from its 
old title of " Reflections;" — a title in 
which, little unity being promised, there 
was little right to expect it. Being 
completely put together too, before the 
change of title took place, and being suf- 
fered, after the change, to remain in a 
great measure as before, it became char- 
ged with incongruities too obvious to 
escape observation. Though an Elegy 
may be written in a church-yard, as w r ell 
as in a closet, and in a country church- 
yard even better than in a town one ; 
yet courtesy itself must pronounce it fan- 
tastical, if an Elegy is to be written, to 



on gray's elegy. 25 

choose out a place for writing it, where 
the conveniences for that operation are 
wanting, and where even the common 
implements either exist not at all, or ex- 
ist by premeditation. Who is there that 
says, or would be endured to say, " I will 
" take me pen, ink, and paper, and get 
" me out into a church-yard, and there 
" write me an Elegy ; for I do well to be 
" melancholy ?" Parnell has carried the 
matter far enough, when he resolves to 
get out into a church-yard, and think 
melancholy thoughts. 

If the writers of studied seriousness, 
and recorders of premeditated griefs, 
would employ one half of the time 
spent in preparing their sadnesses for 
the public eye, in examining into the 
propriety of introducing them to the 
public at all, the journals of poetry 
would be less disgraced than they are 
with the balance of affectation against na- 
ture. The seriousness, which closes upon 



£5 CRITICISM 

the soul, is not the offspring of volition, 
but of instinct. It is not a purpose, but 
a frame. The sorrow, that is sorrow in- 
deed, asks for no prompting. It comes 
without a call It courts not admiration. 
It presses not on the general eye ; but 
hastens under covert, and wails its de- 
solation alone. Its strong-hold is the 
heart. There it remains, close curtain- 
ed ; unseeing ; unseen. Delicacy and 
taste recoil at the publications of inter- 
nal griefs. They profane the hallowed- 
ness of secret sadness ; and suppose se- 
lected and decorated expression compa- 
tible with the prostration of the soul. 

Not only are they indelicate, and out 
of nature : they are also imprudent. Sad- 
ness is a transient feeling. The violence 
of its effusions produces its expenditure, 
as the agitation of lluids promotes their 
evaporation. Of its first unreasonable- 
ness, when the expression is only oral, 
little harm is done; for the language is 



on gray's *elegy. £7 

perishable as the feeling : but " Litera 
script a manet f — and, when the man 
whom " melancholy had marked for her 
own" is found, in violation of his vow, 
" tripping on light fantastic toe," or the 
inconsolable husband, who was to cherish 
no second flame, consents to comfort 
himself in one spouse for the loss of ano- 
ther, they find the public in possession 
of their written wailings, and not a little 
out of temper with them, that they have 
not kept their word. Of the first Lord. 
Littleton, there are many simple men of 
feeling who have scarcely brought them- 
selves to believe, even on the authority 
of the Register, that, after the death of 
his Lucy, he married a second wife. 
Enough of this. 

To the incongruities already specifie d, 
may be added another in this Elegy, in- 
vested as it is with its present title ; and 
that other yet more flagrant. Gray had 
originally laid his Meditation, at a time 






£$ CRITICISM 

with which the idea of the operation of 
writing was incompatible. The " part- 
ing day;" the " glimmering landscape 
fading on the sight ;" the " plowman re- 
turning home, and leaving the world to 
darkness ;" are images consistent with 
the situation of a thinking muser, but 
irreconcileable with the process of wri- 
ting, or even scrawling. Yet, by a friend 
of Gray, a serious, and not unintelligent 
person, who has put together verses him- 
self, and to whom I communicated this 
observation, have I been called upon to 
take notice, that the author has descri- 
bed himself, in the Elegy, as carrying on 
his musing by moon-light ! 

vF ^s* 3JF ffc vlv t(v 3ft? gp t|t 



©n gray's elegy. 29 



L II. III. 

Of this Elegy the three first quatrains 
present what may be termed the prepa- 
ration. To the serious exercise that is 
to take place, it is necessary, that the 
senses be first properly got under ; or, at 
least, that such work be cut out for them, 
as may prevent them from embroiling 
the train of pensive thought. With pro- 
priety then has the author made them 
the objects of his first care. With pro- 
priety too, are hearing and sight select* 
ed ; as the most restive, and unfriendly 
to meditation, and, of course, requiring 
management the most. Gray has push- 
ed this matter apoint farther. Not con- 
tented with their neutrality, he has pro- 
ceeded to court their assistance ; and held 
out to them such "guerdons fair" as might 
win them not only not to obstruct me- 



30 CRITICISM 

dilation, but to act as auxiliaries in pro- 
moting it. 

When these guerdons are brought for- 
ward in exposure ; for the ear we have 
" the sound of the curfew f " the low- 
ing of the herds, returning to their stalls " 
" the tinkling (I suppose) of wether-bells f 
" the droning of the beetle f and " the 
screeching of the owl ;" sounds not im- 
proper, when taken singly, but destruc- 
tive, when taken in the total, to that so- 
lemn stillness which is spoken of. We 
are tempted to think of Hogarth's " en- 
raged Musician/' whose rapture is de- 
stroyed by an agglomeration of sounds, 
each of which, taken separately, might 
have been, by an effort of patience, en- 
dured. 

For the eye we are presented with " the 
slow winding off of the cattle f " the 
plodding pace of the returning plow- 
man " " the fading of the landscape ;" 
and " the moon, discovering, by her light, 



on gray's elegy. 31 

a tower mantled with ivy." Of these 
images, criticism is content to admit the 
propriety, whilst she denies their origi- 
nality, reserving to herself the righ 
of stricture, on the plan according to 
which they are assembled, and the style 
in which they are drawn. 

If the images above recited are traced 
to the poets from whom they are taken, 
we shall not always perceive them to 
have found their way into the Elegy 
written in a Country Church-yard, in an 
improved state. Of the curfew, as heard 
by a man of meditation, we have the 
following circumstantiation in Milton's 
" Penseroso :" 

Oft, on a plat of rising ground, 
I hear the far-off curfew sound ; 
Over some wide-water'd shore, 
Swinging slow with sullen roar. 

To this characteristical figuring, Gray has 
thought proper to substitute the conceit 
of Dante ; according to which the cur- 



3£ CRITICISM 

few is made to toll requiems to the day 
newly deceased : a fancy more subtle 
than solid, and to which the judgment, 
if reconciled at all, is reconciled by ef- 
fort. 

Of evening the approach is described 
in the Elegy, as a prose-muser would 
have described it : " The glimmering 
landscape fades on the sight;" let us 
hear Thomson : 

A faint erroneous ray, 
Glanc'd from th' imperfect surfaces of things, 
Flings half an image on the straining eye ; 
While wavering woods, and villages, and streams, 
And rocks — are, all, one swimming scene, 
Uncertain if beheld. 1 

Or, more compressed in the thought, and 
invested with the sweetness of rhime ; 

But chief, when evening shades decay, 
And the faint landscape swims away. 
Thine is the doubtful soft decline, 
And that best hour of musing thine.* 



Summer. , a Ode to Solitude, 



on gray's elegy. 33 

And Collins : 

Be mine the hut that views 

Hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires, 

And hears their simple bell, and marks, o'er all, 

Thy dewy fingers draw 

The gradual dusky veil. 1 

The idea of making sounds of a certain 
kind give a relief (to speak in the lan- 
guage of artists) to silence, is not new. 
Thus wrote Collins in 1746 : 

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-ey'd bat, 
With short shrill shriek, flits by on leathern wing j 

Or, where the beetle winds 

His small, but sullen horn.* 

The beetle of Collins and Gray is the 
" g re yfly" °f Milton, that, in the pen- 
sive man's ear, " winds his sultry horn/' 
Collins has changed the epithet into sul- 
len, by a happy misremembrance. 

In Parnell, in place of " ivy mantling 



1 Ode to Evening. 2 Ibid. 



34 CRITICISM 

a tower," we have " yew bathing a char- 
nel-house with dew." The ivy and the 
tower might stand any where as well as 
in a church-yard ; but the charnel-house 
is characteristic, and the yew is funereal. 
Of ParnelFs image, however, candour 
must acknowledge the strength to be 
so great as to render it almost offensive. 
In Gray, the introduction of the owl 
is proper. ParnelFs ravens might have 
found another place to croak in than a 
church-yard, and another time than night. 
But the part the owl acts in the Elegy is 
impertinent, as well as foolish ; and ex- 
hibits an example of a writer spoiling a 
good image, by piecing it. On some fine 
evening, Gray had seen the moon shining 
on a tower such as is here described. An 
owl might be peeping out from the ivy 
with which it was clad : Of the observer, 
the station might be such, that the owl, 
now emerged from the " mantling," pre- 
sented itself to his eye in profile, skirt- 



on gray's elegy. 35 

ing the moon's limb. All this is well. 
The perspective is rather striking : and 
the picture not ill defined. But the poet 
was not content. He felt a desire to 
enlarge : and, in executing his pur- 
pose, produced accumulation without 
improvement. The idea of the owl's 
complaining is an artificial one ; and the 
view on which it proceeds absurd. Gray 
should have seen, that it but ill befitted 
the bird of wisdom to complain to the 
moon of an intrusion, which the moon 
could no more help than herself. 

I suspect this idea, of the owl com- 
plaining to the moon, to have been a 
borrowed one, though I do not certainly 
know from whom. Addison, whose piety 
deterred him from doubting that religion 
was capable of poetic embellishment, has 
made the moon tell a story, and the stars 
and planets sing a devotional catch. 1 

! Spectator, N° 465. 



36 CRITICISM 

But of fancies approaching to Gray's, I 
find no one that approaches so closely, 
as that contained in the children's book, 
where the little dog is drawn barking at 
the moon. It is expostulation in the one 
case, and scolding in the other. Gray 
has chosen the most respectful. But 
enough of this. Criticism is content to 
check a curiosity that wants an adequate 
object, and would spare Poetry the mor- 
tification of finding herself tracked to the 
lanes and blind allies where her trappings 
were picked up. 

Though the complaint of the owl is 
unreasonable, her distress is characteris- 
tical, and prettily expressed ; yet " bower" 
is rather a gay term for an owl's eyry ; 
and-of the application of " reign/' where 
there are none to reign over, the pro- 
priety admits of doubt. 

A few words more on the expression, 
in these three stanzas. " Leaves the 
world to darkness and to me," is quaint, 

11 



on gray's elegy. 37 

and puts us in mind of w great Anna," 
who 

Does sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tea : r 

but quaintness is what every reader comes 
prepared to meet with in Gray. It is one 
of the most marked features in his poeti- 
cal character, and sometimes extends to 
his prose.* " I am come/' (says he, in 
one of his letters to his friend) " to town, 
and better hopes of seeing you! } " How 
little are the Great" was the closing line 
of a stanza in that ode, 3 in which it is said, 
that " they that creep and they that fly, 
shall end where they began :" and so he 
suffered it ior some time to stand, in ap- 
plication, no doubt, of his own idea of a 
closing thought, which ought, as he ex- 
presses himself, 4 " to have a flower stuck 



1 Pope. * Mason's Collections. 

3 Ode on Spring. 4 Mason. 

D 



38 CRITICISM 

in it," or " to be twirled off into an apoph- 
thegm." The flower, however, in time, 
ceased to please him : yet, with so faul- 
tering a hand did he pluck it out, and so 
awkwardly did he re-adjust the parts that 
remained, that, as his Editor observes, 
the change was for the worse, and the 
thought lost its original poignancy. 1 

When I am told that " all the air a so- 
lemn stillness holds," I hesitate ; and in 
vain, by the help of the Grammar, or 
Collocation, endeavour to discover w T hich 
of the two is the holder, and which is the 
held. If it is the air that holds the still- 
ness, too great liberty is taken with the 
verb ; and if it is the stillness that holds 
the air, the action is too violent for so 
quiet a personage: but the sound was 
necessary, to assist the bell-wedders to 
complete the lulling of the " folds." 



Mason. 



on gray's elegy. 39 

Having cleared the way in the prece- 
ding stanzas, he now enters upon his 
ground, and lays out his Church-yard in 
form. Here Criticism is posed, unable 
to answer the question, " What is the 
most proper church-yard ?" Whether 
there be a taste in church-yards ; and a 
selection of capabilities required in this, 
as well as in other modifications of ter- 
rene surface, I am uncertain, Nor do I 
know that Kent, or the other English ar- 
chitects, ever laid out a church-yard ; 
though it appears that the Scotch, who 
are eager to make the most of every 
thing, have taken even that into their 
general plan of pleasure ground. 1 Gray's 
Church-yard has been designed : But 
the fancy of Cipriani, wedded to the 
softness of Bartolozzi, has not been able 
to produce from it any thing that makes 



Called by them Policy, 



40 CRITICISM 

a decisive appeal to any strong feeling 
of the heart. 

Neither of Parnell, nor of Gray, does 
the Church-yard contain any thing that 
any church-yard might not contain. Of 
Parnell, the Church-yard and its envi- 
rons aret hus presented to the reader's 
view: " In distant prospect, a lake: 
" resting on its bosom, the moon, sur- 
" rounded by stars, having for ground a 
" sky deep azure : on the right, rising 
" grounds, " retiring in dimness from the 
" sight ;" on the left, the Church-yard ; 
" or (as he, in imitation of the Hebrew 
" simplicity, calls it) the place of graves, 
" surrounded by a wall, which is laved 
€ ' by a silent stream : a steeple, belong- 
" ing, no doubt, to the church : a char- 
" nel-house, over-canopied with yew : 
" graves, with their turf osier-bound : 
" other graves, with smooth flat stones 
" inscribed : and others still, splendidly 
" done out with marble, &c" 



on gray's elegy. 41 

Gray's Church-yard is thus connected 
with its adjuncts, and presented to the 
reader's eye : " In near prospect, a vil- 
" lage : herds and labourers returning 
" home : glimmering landscape : tower 
" ivy-mantled, surmounted by an owl, 
" in profile and perspective, skirting the 
" moon : rugged elms : shady yew : an 
" old thorn ; and the surface swelling 
" here and there with common graves. 
" Hard by is a wood, a nodding beech, 
" and a brook running over pebbles/' 

Of the two designs, taken in a general 
view, that of Parnell seems the more per- 
fect. The assemblage takes in every 
thing that a church-yard should con- 
tain ; and a gradation of graves is intro- 
duced, with due attention to the distinc- 
tion of ranks, which is not lost even in 
a church-yard. In this respect, Gray's 
Church-yard is imperfect ; and the im- 
perfection has deprived his meditation 
of some of its interest. It has, besides, 



42 CRITICISM 

no charnel-house. In other respects, it 
is much as it should be ; which, at best, 
is but a negative merit. The absence 
of blemish is not perfection: and of that 
officer, small will be the claim to praise, 
who, complying with the rule of the ser- 
vice, comes out to mount guard in his 
regimentals. 



IV. 

Of inaccuracy in the formation of the 
thought, the fourth quatrain furnishes 
some examples. It is more according 
to truth, as well as convenience, to sup- 
pose a church-yard hedged round with 
trees, than planted with them. A church- 
yard is not a thicket. A human body 
buried at the foot of a large tree, with 
strong spreading roots, is more consonant 
to poetry than to practice. It is not true, 



ON GRAY S ELEGY. 43 

that, in an ordinary assemblage of graves, 
the " turf heaves in mouldering heaps/' 
If the ground heaves, no doubt the turf 
will heave with it : but the " heaps/' if 
they are " mouldering heaps," must heave 
through the turf, not the turf in them, 
" Rude forefathers of the hamlet," is 
equivocal. The forefathers of a hamlet 
should mean other, more ancient,hamlets. 
But of hamlets there are no genealogies. 
Among them no degrees of consanguini- 
ty are reckoned. 



V. VI. 



The two following stanzas contain a 
paraphrase of the two last lines of the 
preceding ; viz. 

*' Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, 

" The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep ;"— ^ 

and, of this paraphrase, it may be grant- 



44 CRITICISM 

ed that the language is pleasing ; yet of 
the circumstances brought into view, 
there is no pointed and respective ap- 
plication to the different orders of dead 
that are specified. Though the sleepers 
are subjected to classification, and distin- 
guished into four sets, reapers, tillers, 
team-drivers, and wood-cutters ; and, 
though the rousers to morning labour 
are also enumerated as four ; yet the de- 
partments are not set off distinctly,* nor 
are the sounds that are to rouse charac- 
teristically appropriated to each. Nei- 
ther the " twittering of the swallow/' 
nor the " clarion of the cock/ have re- 
ference to one set of sleepers more than 
to another : and the " echoing horn" 
seems to have nothing to do with any of 
them. What is meant by the " breezy 
call of incense-breathing morn," as an 
help to early rising, is not very plain ; 
though this is one of the lines that it 



on gray's elegy. 45 

is thought creditable to apprehend and 
feel. 

Thomson, indeed, has asked the fol- 
lowing question : 

Falsely luxurious, will not man arise, 
And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy 
The cooly the fragrant, and the silent hour ? r 

But the motive contained in this expos*- 
tulation is not physical, but moral ; it 
is directed to those that are already 
awake, but who, from laziness, " con- 
tinue a-bed, when they should be stir- 
ring about." 

" Twitter," applied to the sw T allow, is 
one of those words whose measure and 
articulation are supposed to resemble 
what they denote. Gray found it in 
Dryden ; and, as Thomson had done be- 
fore him, took it on trust. But what 



Summer. 



46 CRITICISM 

shall we say of the " clarion of the cock ? M 
It is, no doubt, allowed to poetry to ex- 
alt the little, by comparing it to the 
great ; but, Sunt certi fines. To swell out 
an insignificant little being, by an ac- 
cumulation of glaring trappings, and to 
compare his shrill diminutive pipe to a 
bold instrument of martial music, is to 
subject the animal as well as the de- 
scription, to ridicule.— Incredulus odi. 

When Cupid, in an Ode of Anacreon, 
gives the name of " winged dragon" to 
a bee, and calls the puncture received 
from his sting a " mortal wound," the 
levity of the piece, as well as the design, 
reconciles us to the hyperbole. In ma- 
king his grey fly " wind a horn," Milton 
has gone fully as far as he ought. It is 
not enough for the justification of Gray, 
that his offence is not greater than Mil- 
ton's ; — that " clarion" is not more to the 
pock, than " horn" is to the beetle. The 



on gray's elegy. 47 

justness of poetical description has no^ 
thing to do with the doctrine of ratios. 
Hamlet's advice concerning chaste play- 
ing, applies equally to chaste description. 
There may be an " outstepping the mo- 
desty of nature" in both. 

If " straw-built shed" be meant as de- 
scriptive of a swallow's nest* it is an af- 
fected expression, and adopted in defi- 
ance of observation. A shed is a roof or 
covering : the roof or covering has, in the 
case of a swallow's nest, nothing neces- 
sarily to do with straw ; nor is it built 
by the swallow at all. 

In the sixth stanza, it is assumed, that 
" the blazing hearth burns;" although 
it is obvious, that the hearth neither 
blazes nor burns ; but the fire upon the 
hearth. " But more than this might be 
forgiven to the picture of domestic hap- 
piness which the stanza holds out, and 
which is drawn with great interest, and 
much simplicity. 



48 CRITICISM 

Thomson had said, in a case somewhat 
similar, 

In vain for him th s officious wife prepares 
The fire fair blazing, and the vestment warm ; 
In vain his little children, peeping out 
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire, 
With tears of artless innocence. — Alas ! 
Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold; 
Nor friends; nor sacred home.* 

Here are the same images. The blazing 
fire ; the busy wife, plying her evening 
care ; and the children, anxious for the 
return of their father, by both affectedly 
denominated sire. — They occur also in 
nearly the same order. The image of 
the children, however, Gray has impro- 
ved by the addition of a tender stroke, 
not in the original : 

Nor climb his knees the envied kiss to share, 



! Winter, 



on gray's elegy. 49 



VII. VIII. 

In the seventh quatrain, is contained 
the discriminated catalogue of the dead, 
already alluded to ; and, in the eighth, 
the caveat to Grandeur and Ambition. 
Of this latter stanza, however, the last 
two lines serve little other purpose than 
to complete the number to four. The 
idea was already fully in our possession. 
" Grandeur" is but " Ambition" in hb 
Sunday's clothes. Ambition s " mock- 
ery," and Grandeur's " disdainful smile," 
are the same : and the " short, but sim- 
ple annals of the poor," are their " useful 
toil ; homely joys ; and obscure destiny." 
But this is a fault chargeable on Gray, 
throughout the whole Elegy. In every 
description we recognize the rhetorician ; 
studiously presenting his object in a mul- 
titude of different aspects ; and creating 



50 CRITICISM 

an artificial increase of dimension, by a 
minute and tedious enumeration. 



IX. 



In the three first lines of the ninth 
stanza is inculcated a serious truth, by 
way of check to the sneers of grandeur 
and ambition. But Beauty is forced awk- 
wardly into the company of these scof- 
fers. As she was no accomplice in their 
mockery, she is unjustly, as well as un- 
politely, involved in their mortification. 
Of the third line the expression is faulty, 
because it is obscure. The signification 
of the word " await," is not yet very 
pointedly ascertained. Whether does 
the hour of death await pomp and beau- 
ty ? or do they await it ? Both modes of 
phraseology have examples in our lan- 
guage. 



on gray's elegy. 51 

" Even as the wretch, condemn'd to lose his life^ 
" Awaits the falling of the murderous knife/'-— 

is said by Fairfax. But the other is the 
more generally received usage. We ra- 
ther accustom ourselves to say, that " the 
evil awaits the sufferer ;" than that " the 
sufferer awaits the evil/' According to 
this view, it should be awaits. But, as by 
this means the nominative and the verb 
would change places in the syntax, and 
the arrangement be awkward to an Eng- 
lish ear ; in several editions, and particu- 
larly in Mr Mason's, it has been printed 
" await." There is a difficulty both ways. 
When, in the use of any expression, an 
author finds himself thus troubled and 
beset, he ought to abandon it altogether, 
and substitute one of more undisputed 
capability. 

The stanza concludes with a conceit. 
It is not true, that " the path of glory 
leads but to the grave." Nor is it because 
it is the path of glory that it leads thither 



52 CRITICISM 

at all. ParnelFs thought, with less con- 
ceit, has in it more of interest, and much 
more of piety. 

" Death's but a path that must be trod, 
" If man would ever pass to God." 

In a series of stanzas that follow, the 
author sets himself to expostulate with 
the proud ; and undertakes to prove the 
absurdity of the contempt which he sup- 
poses them r£ady to pour on the " un- 
honoured dead," for their want of more 
superb monuments, from a regular suc- 
cession of common places : 

1. It was no "fault" of theirs that they had not such 

monuments. 

2. They would have stood them in little stead, had they 

had them. 

3. Worth and Genius may have existed without them. 

4. It was the injustice of fortune that made them want 

them. 

5. The account was balanced for them another way. 



■ Night-Piece. 



ON GRAY S ELEGY. 53 



~ all which topics are handled with toler- 
able plausibility, and at decent length* 



X. 



It is in the tenth stanza, that this train 
of thought commences. But the intro- 
duction is not clear of incumbrance. 
" Impute not to these the fault," is an 
affected and inadequate expression for 
" don't treat them with scorn/' The two 
last lines are the most majestic in the 
whole Elegy. But they contain an ap- 
peal to feelings, which none but those 
who are so happy as to have been bred 
up in a veneration for the solemn forms 
and service of the National Church, can 
expect to possess. The palate of a sec- 
tary, accustomed to the reception of 



&4 CRITICISM 

slender foods, will nauseate the full meal 
set before him in these lines ; 

Where, through the long-drawn aisle, and fretted vault, 
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 

Of this last line, however, criticism must 
remark, that either the composition of 
the thought is faulty, or the arrangement 
of the expression is inverted. It is not 
the anthem that swells the note, but the 
agglomeration of notes that swells the 
anthem. I am content to suppose this 
to have been his meaning ; communica- 
ted in a mode of arrangement, unplea- 
sing to an English reader in his own lan- 
guage, but of which he admits the pro- 
priety in Latin compositions. I have 
seen this line most correctly transferred 
into that language in many different 
modes, all of them meritorious, in a se- 
lection from Exercises written by the 
Boys of the first form in Merchant Taylor's 
School, and sent to me, with a view, of 



on gray's elegy. 55 

which I will not gratify my vanity with 
the publication ; though justice requires 
that of the worthy master I should so- 
lace the labours, by recording the un- 
wearied diligence, and by bearing testi- 
mony to those abilities that are sedulous- 
ly exerted in forming the rising hopes of 
another age. 



XI. 

Fault has already been found with 
Gray for conforming to the affected use 
of participles in place of adjectives. 
" Honied spring f madding crowd, &c." 
* c Storied urn," is of the same family, 
and even more exceptionable, because 
liable to misapprehension. The intend- 
ed meaning of the epithet is, " having 
stories figured upon it." In the Pense- 



56 CRITICISM 

roso of Milton, it is to be found as an 
epithet applied to windows, of which the 
panes are of painted glass. It is also 
used by Pope. " Flattery, soothing the 
ear of death/' is characteristical. What 
is said of " Honour's voice" is not said 
happily. There is a want of appropria- 
tion. " Silent dust/' is one of these ex- 
pressions, which Voltaire used to deno- 
minate des Suisses ; always ready at a 
call, and willing to engage in any ser- 
vice. 



XII. XIII. 



In the two following quatrains, is well 
described the depression of genius under 
ignorance and poverty. But, here too, 
allowance must be made for a little of 



on gray's elegy. 57 

the old leaven. Hands are, metaphori- 
cally, said to " sway the rod of empire," 
and literally to bring forth sounds from 
the lyre. " Living lyre" is from Cow- 
ley ; and, of his obligation to the royal 
poet of Judah, for the application of the 
idea " awake" to the eliciting of sounds 
from the harp or lyre, he has thought 
the acknowledgment deserving comme- 
moration. In the whole of the Elegy, 
criticism has not been able to find two 
more happy lines than the following : 

Chill penury repress'd their noble rage, 
And froze the genial current of the soul. 

Here are really two ideas. Penury, in 
the character of frost, deprives the cur- 
rent of its heat, and checks its onward 
motion. I am unwilling to suppose the 
metaphor to be an incoherent one ; and 
that Gray jumbled into one, the images 
of horsemanship, and watery motion, as 



58 CRITICISM 

Addison has done in the following coup- 
let: 

I bridle in my struggling muse with pain, 
That longs to launch into a nobler strain. 



XIV. 

Of the melancholy truth, that great 
parts are often kept from expansion, by 
the influence of poverty and ignorance, 
the fourteenth stanza seems to promise 
the illustration, by reference made to 
analogous depressions of excellence in 
the material and vegetable kingdoms. 
But more is promised than performed- 
The examples are made up of shewy 
images ; but they are not examples in 
point. Nun erat his locus. 

The proposition to be illustrated was, 
" That latent possibilities of perfection, 
" which favourable situations and cir- 

1 Letter from Italy. 



on gray's elegy. 59 

" cumstances might have brought out, 
" are, sometimes, by circumstances of an 
f, 6 untowardly kind, prevented from be- 
" ing duly unfolded." Of this position 
illustrations might easily have been found* 
had not Gray confounded it with ano- 
ther, equally true, yet altogether distinct. 
That other position, is, % That, of per- 
" fections already unfolded, there may 
" occur extrinsic causes to prevent the 
" beneficial display." 

It is of this latter position, that Gray 
has given the illustration, in the images 
of " the gem, whose brightness is hid by 
" its depth in the sea ;" and of " the 
"flower, whose beauty and fragrance are 
" lost, on account of the solitude of the 
" desert in which it grows." It is no- 
thing to the illustration of the former 
position, that the flower blushes un- 
seen ; or that the gem may grow where 
no hand can reach it. Had the bright- 



60 CRITICISM 

ness of the gem remained folded up*in 
the crust ; or the flower been frost- 
nipt in the bad, the images had been in 
point. 

Of the images themselves I have al- 
ready allowed the merit. They are both, 
however, to be found in Thomson, from 
whom Gray seems to have borrowed 
more than he thought fit to acknow- 
ledge. Speaking of the influence of the 
sun, and the universal operation of light; 
he says, 1 in the way of address to the 
great operator, 

Tne unfruitful rock itself, impregn'd by thee, 
In dark retirement forms the lucid stone. 
The lively diamond drinks thy purest rays ; , 
Collected light compact. 

And, describing the retirement of a rural 
beauty,* 

As, in the hollow breast of Apennine, 
Beneath the shelter of encircling hills, 



Summer, a Autumn. 



on gray's elegy. 61 

A myrtle rises, far from human eye, 
And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild ; 
So flourish'd, blooming, and unseen by all, 
The sweet Lavinia. 

In the former example, the <6 diamond" 
of Thomson becomes the " gem" of Gray. 
Both are formed m retirement ; though 
Gray has changed the place ; and trans- 
planted the diamond into the sea, for 
causes that do not appear, and with a 
propriety of which criticism entertains 
a doubt. Both stones are of " purest 
ray." 

Of the latter image, the identity is still 
more obvious ; although it has been dis- 
guised by the change of a mvrtle into a 
flower ; and, perhaps, by a shifting of 
the scene from Italy to Arabia Deserta. 
Why a flower was thought more eligible 
than a myrtle, or a desert more proper 
than a shelter d waste, for rearing a ten- 
der plant, we are not informed. To see 
the sense of justice return, is pleasant, 
even when the return is late. Gray, to- 



62 CRITICISM 

wards the end of his life, dived for the 
gem ; and, having brought it up, replant- 
ed it in the earth, to be " raised/' (not 
disloyally I hope) to grace a diadem. 
To the myrtle he made also signal amends, 
for its long transformation into a flower, 
by a supplicate through the chancellor of 
his university, to have it raised from its 
metamorphosis to the dignity of the 
mitre. 

Thy liberal heart, thy judging eye, 
The flower unheeded shall descry, 
And bid it round Heaven's altar shed 
The fragrance of its blushing head; 
Shall raise from earth the latent gem, 
To glitter on the diadem.* 

Thomson's myrtle " breathes its balmy 
fragrance o'er the wild ;" Gray's flower 
" wastes its sweetness on the desert air." 
" Wastes," in place of " breathes," is an 
improvement; though, whether one air 

1 Installation Ode. 



on gray's elegy. 63 

is more " desert" than another, the au- 
thority of Shakespeare himself will not 
hinder us to doubt. 

It is often highly entertaining to trace 
imitation. To detect the adopted image, 
the copied design, the transferred senti- 
ment, the appropriated phrase, and even 
the acquired manner and frame, under 
the disguises that mutilation, combina- 
tion, and accommodation, may have 
thrown around them, must require both 
parts and diligence; but it will bring 
with it no ordinary gratification. A book, 
professedly on the " History and Pro- 
gress of Imitation in Poetry," written by 
a man of perspicacity, and an adept in 
the art of discerning likenesses, even 
when minute; with examples properly 
selected, and gradations duly marked ; 
would make an important accession to 
the store of human literature, and fur- 
nish rational curiosity with a high re- 
gale. 



64 CRITICISM 

I remember to have once heard, I know 
not where, or from whom, that Swift had 
projected a work of this kind. But Swift 
was full of projects; and scarcely pos- 
sessed steadiness or industry sufficient to 
carry such a design through. I should 
have had better hopes of its success in 
the hands of Addison than of Swift. But 
I return to Gray. 

To the expression in some parts of this 
stanza, certain objections have been pro- 
posed. The word " bear," is thought to 
be improperly used, and to have been 
produced by the exigencies of the rhyme : 
the caves of ocean " supporting the pre- 
cious stones that are formed there," is 
said to be an idea inept and insignifi- 
cant. To this it has been urged in reply, 
that " bear," in this passage, means " pro- 
duce" in analogy to vegetable birth. But 
I am not sure that the analogy is not ra- 
ther to animal production. Thus Wal- 
ler, in a similar case, speaking of the sea ; 



on gray's elegy. 65 



'tis so rockless and so clear, 



That the rich bottom does appear 
Paved all with precious things, not torn 
From shipwreck'd vessels, but there born. 1 



And of the application of " born/' also, 
to the flower, which " blushes unseen," 
the same may be the account. It is not 
metaphysically used, to denote necessity 
or fate ; but physically, to denote pro- 
duction. The use of " born" for " des- 
tined," is too proverbial for poetry. 

" Purest ray serene," has been censu- 
red by some as obscure, and by others 
as redundant. But that an expression, 
which seems to have been studiously 
sought, should have had no meaning in 
the mind of its author, it is scarcely rea- 
sonable to suppose. Gray, in the matu- 
rer part of his life, addicted himself to 
the study of natural history. It is not 



* Loving at First Sight. 



66 CRITICISM 

impossible that, in some of the writers 
he had read on these subjects, he had 
found " ray serene ;" (raggio sereno ;) 
used, as a technical term, for what, in 
precious stones, is commonly called the 
water. 

" Purest ray," taken by itself, is the 
expression of Thomson ; who afterwards 
calls it " collected light compact," ac- 
cording to a mode, not uncommon with 
him, of thrusting in his noun betwixt 
two shouldering epithets ; in the use of 
which mode, he and his fellow imitators 
were, as I have heard Savage humorous- 
ly observe, kept in countenance by Mil- 
ton's " human face divine." * 

Of this stanza, before I conclude the 
examination, I am willing to gratify the 
reader with a communication on the sub- 



1 Paradise Lost, Book iii. 



on gray's elegy. 67 

ject, made to me by the late Dr Calvert 
Blake, a gentleman of eminent taste, and 
most extensive acquaintance with the bo- 
dy of English poetry ; and who, by the 
cabals of trusted malignity, was driven 
from high hopes of merited preferment ; 
and forced, though a series of accumu- 
lating misfortunes (of the greatest part 
of which, as he informed me, he had a 
regular presentiment,) to seek refuge in 
the mountains of Wales, where he taught 
the private school founded by the bene- 
faction of the late Colonel Perkins, till 
death put an end to his distress. 

It was the opinion of Dr Blake, that 
Gray was drawn into this expression in- 
cidentally, by the instinctive operation of 
his ear, presenting him with indistinct and 
faint renewals of sounds, which he had 
treasured up mechanically, and without 
purpose of recal. Thomson had said, 
" purest ray," and Milton, with an ar- 



68 CRITICISM 

rangemeiit very like the present, " so 
thick a drop serene " l and from the two 
together was formed by Gray his " pu- 
rest ray serene/' Thus far Dr Blake* 
Whether his conjecture be well found- 
ed, I do not here mean to inquire. The 
coincidence of rhythm and form is re- 
markable. " Drop serene/' is a transla- 
tion of " gutta serena," a technical ex- 
pression for a disease of the eyes, pro- 
ceeding from an inspissation of humours, 
and terminating in the loss of sight. Of 
the application of the term serene, to a 
case where there is a total shutting out 
of light, Physic may be left, at her own 
leisure, to give her own account. 



1 Paradise Lost, Book iii. 



on gray's elegy. 69 



XV. 

Of the fifteenth stanza I find little to 
praise, either in the poetry or politics : 
for politics it does contain ; although it 
is part of a meditation on death. Gray 
had passed his youth like most young 
men, who are taught, or teach themselves, 
to consider something peculiarly respect- 
able as associated with the character of 
Whig. Of the ebullitions of his unin- 
formed youth, he was unfortunate enough 
to reserve considerable part for the plague 
of his riper age. Of his whiggish preju- 
dices his poetry is full. 

That whiggism is the best poetical side 
of the question, candour is content to al- 
low. If it seldom puts much money in 
the poet's purse, or brings with it much 
quiet to his mind, it is useful to him in 



70 CRITICISM 

the way of his profession ; and, when he 
works himself up to faction, he may be 
said to " labour in his vocation/' Of Li- 
berty, the idea is so vague, and the di- 
mension so little settled, that the poet 
may make of it what he will. The fairy 
land is all his own ; and, however fantas- 
tic his combinations may be, he will not 
want fantastic hearers to listen to his 
tale. 

He may transform his mortal into a 
" goddess," at will. He may chuse out 
for her what proportions, and invest her 
with what attributes he chuses. He may 
array her in robes that are " heavenly 
bright/' He may describe her as offer- 
ing " bliss" with " profusion," and ready 
to be delivered of " delight :" " Plea- 
sure," crowned, walking with her, arm in 
arm ; and " Plenty," drest in smiles, bear- 
ing up her train behind ; whilst she scat- 
ters her gifts on every side ; giving to na- 



on gkay's elegy, 71 

ture gaiety, to the sun beauty, and to the 
day pleasure." When he has thus finish- 
ed off his goddess, he may think of in- 
troducing her into company ; and, what- 
ever be the fate of her gentleman usher, 
the goddess is sure of being well received 
by those that know the value of such a 
visitant. 

"Whatever may in general be urged or 
admitted, on the one side or the other, 
concerning Liberty, criticism must be al- 
lowed, with pertinacity, to maintain, that 
the political creed of Thomas Gray had 
nothing to do in the Elegy written in a 
Country Church-yard. Not only is this 
insertion out of place ; it is also ill-timed. 
The zealots of rebellion are no longer he- 
roes in Britain ; and the appeal to the 
admiration of the reader, is tossed back 
in the authors face. Other times have 



* Addison. Letter from Italy. 



72 CRITICISM 

brought with them other principles. Tern* 
pora mutantur, et nos — . The subtle dis- 
tinctions, and inflammatory reasonings, 
that countenanced the shedding of sanc- 
tified blood, are no longer allowed a hear- 
ing. Even the whiggish Addison has de- 
clared such reasonings to heprofanation ; 
pronouncing, almost a century ago, and 
of his own favoured Milton, that 

— Now the language can't support the cause. 1 

Of distinguished models of human ex- 
cellence, of characters high-finished, both 
in understanding and heart, there is no 
want, either in the general history of 
mankind, or in the particular history of 
this island ; and astonishment cannot 
help doubling her usual portion of won- 
der, that, from among the assembled 
worthies of the world, Gray could find 



1 Account of the greatest English Poets. 



on gray's elegy. 73 

none deserving selection, as patterns of 
greatness to man, save three desperate 
partisans of faction, and promoters of a 
rebellion, that subverted both the laws 
and government of his country. 

Of these three characters, only one is 
held up to any censure. Even on him 
the censure is made to fall obliquely, 
and, after it has had its force broken by 
a whiggish arm. The censure itself too 
is of whiggish make. Of Cromwell, the 
crime is declared to have been the shed- 
ding his country's blood. For his king's, 
Gray returns " ignoramus" on the bill, 



XVI. 

In the sixteenth stanza is contained 
more, in the way of allusion to these he- 
roes and their transactions ; but allusion, 
at which criticism finds herself obliged 



74 CRITICISM 

to stop short. Though the evil temper 
of the times did enable them to " com- 
mand the applause of listening senates/' 
which is poetical language, for being well 
heard in the house ; yet, with what pro- 
priety, can any of them be said to have 
" scattered plenty o'er a smiling land ?" 
Of a land that has its plough-share turn- 
ed into a sword, the plenty is not great : 
nor was England drest in smiles in the 
time of the great rebellion. 

In this stanza too, Gray is guilty of an 
inconsistency. " To despise the threats 
of pain and ruin," is not of the class of 
virtues that the poor man's lot forbids, 
even according to the views of Gray. 
On his " village Hampden/' notwithstand- 
ing the meanness of his lot, he forgets 
that, in the former stanza, he conferred 
a dauntless breast, in all the forms of in- 
vestiture. But the disgrace of this in- 
consistency is due to him ; for having, 
on an occasion like this, suffered his mind 



on gray's ELEGY. 75 

to be bewildered with politics. It is a 
great blot upon the piece. Of a work, 
such as this, the sentiments ought to be 
such as every heart will return ; the ap- 
peals, such as every mind will admit. 
Death generalizes the specifications of 
political tenets. The grave takes in all 
parties. There is no Shibboleth among 
her subjects. 

The " reading their history in a na- 
tion's eyes" is a thought that holds more 
of rhetoric than poetry. " History" is too 
indefinite a term. There is good history, 
and there is bad. It is no exclusive pri- 
vilege of good men to be able to read 
their history thus. The bad come in for 
their share. Nor do the rich enjoy here 
any power of appropriation, which ex- 
tends not also to the poor, in degree. The 
expression is a forced one. We common- 
ly read the histories of others : seldom 
our own. 



76 CRITICISE 



XVII. XVIII. 

Of the two following stanzas, the com- 
position is faulty in respect to their con- 
nection with the preceding, and with 
each other. Even where the composi- 
tion is in couplets, the fastidious critic 
is unwilling that the sense should be 
made out by the couplets' bearing in 
upon each other. When the stanza ex- 
ceeds two lines in number, the effect is 
yet more disagreeable. The plea of ne- 
cessity is urged with less reason ; and the 
contrast betwixt the completed circum- 
scription of sound, and the yet uncom- 
pleted accumulation of sense, becomes 
more revolting, as it becomes more felt. 

With this blemish, the stanzas under 
consideration are chargeable. Gray was 
not unaware of it ; and, that it might be 
less perceptible as a blemish, he gave 



on gray's elegy. 77 

orders, in the first edition, that no dis- 
tinction of stanzas should be marked,* 
In a Scotch edition, however, of his 
Poems, which he seems to have thought 
likely to extend his fame, the natural 
distinction of stanzas is restored, as it is 
in many others, particularly in Mr Ma- 
son's. The device was but a shallow one, 
and very properly relinquished. In verse 
of this alternate structure, the lines form 
themselves into quaternions : and the 
bringing out these quaternions separate- 
ly to the eye, is only a technical contri- 
vance, enabling us to parcel them more 
readily. Instead of attempting to con- 
ceal the fault, Gray should have tried to 
mend it. 

In the sense I find little to blame, that 
may not be referred to some of the for- 
mer strictures on this Elegy. " Virtues/' 



Mason. 



78 CRITICISM 

and " Crimes" are ideas too particular 
for the author's view in this place, which 
is meant to extend to the circumscrip- 
tion, from causes extrinsic, of the range of 
natural, as well as moral, action. " Hi- 
ding the struggling pangs of conscious 
truth," and " quenching the blushes of 
ingenuous shame," are only different de- 
scriptions of the same action, viz. the 
" checking the dictates of Conscience." 
" Quenching blushes," is an idea scarce- 
ly correct ; though, by the quenching 
of heat, blushes may be made to disap- 
pear. That the poor man's lot forbids 
the bearing down the suggestions of con- 
science, is only relatively true. Profli- 
gacy is free of all corporations. 



on gray's elegy. 79 



XIX. 

In the nineteenth stanza is described, 
in a manner that is pleasing, the calm 
and contented state of an unaspiring and 
meek mind. But what description can 
there be, in which such a picture will 
not please ? The two first lines are, from 
the arrangement, equivocal : but we know 
what the author ought to mean. It is 
not, that " their wishes never strayed far 
from the strife of the crowd ;" but that, 
" naturally retired from that strife, they 
formed no wish to stray from such re- 
tirement/' Yet the words " crowd," and 
" ignoble," are not happily selected, to 
be brought forward in a description of 
the contentions of the " mighty," and 
the " great." The two closing lines have 



SO CRITICISM 

in them something of softness, that makes 
criticism deal censure with reluctance : 

Along the cool, sequestered vale of life, 
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 

Yet, even here, the idea, as usual, is pre- 
sented to us in different aspects. Ambi- 
tion is painted as a hot, and then as a 
noisy, personage ; and to these views of 
his character are opposed the " cool 
vale/' and the " noiseless tenor," that 
are thought fit to be associated with the 
character of the man of content. Gray 
never could be brought to see when he 
had said enough. 



XX, XXI. XXII. XXIII. 

The four stanzas that follow, are to me 
the most pleasing in the Elegy. The no- 

13 



on gray's elegy. 81 

tions appear to memory, original; though 
to belief and feeling, imitations. But, 
great as is their general merit, in some 
particulars they are faulty. The sac red- 
ness of the critic's trust, imposes on him 
sometimes the exertion of self-denial; 
obliging him to range for blemishes, 
where his wishes are to find nought but 
beauties. 

In the first of the four, the expression 
" these bones," where only persons had 
been spoken of, is awkward* " Their 
bones," would have been less exception- 
able. To " protect from insult," is pro- 
saic ; and, if the end of the " memorial" 
was this protection, there is no necessity 
that we be put in mind, by the sugges- 
tion of the frailness of that memorial, that 
the end will not be answered. A memo- 
rial, protecting from insult, is a mode of 
expression approaching to nonsense. If 
protection be ever the result of its erec- 
tion, it is only in a secondary way. 



82 CRITICISM 

The twenty-first stanza does not set 
out happily. " Their name/' " their 
years :" whose name ? whose years ? they 
were bones, not persons, that were last 
mentioned : and a nomenclature of bones, 
followed with the age of each, engraved 
over their respective repositories, is too 
ludicrous a fancy to be allowed sanction 
in the judgment for a moment. Of the 
meaning there is no doubt ; but of that 
meaning, the expression is unlucky. In 
all compositions that are serious, the re- 
motest temptation to what is ludicrous 
should be resisted. Of this idea, Gray 
himself seems to have felt the truth, and 
has alluded to it forcibly in his short 
strictures on * Sterne's Sermons. " They 
are just/' says he, " what sermons should 
" be : but the preacher often totters on 
16 the verge of risibility, and seems ready 



Mason. 



on gray's elegy. S3 



u 



to dash his periwig in the faces of his 
" auditors." Sterne's risibility was buf- 
foonery ; and an outrage on taste as well 
as decency. With this Gray is not charge- 
able. But, in a case where much caution 
is necessary, it is not enough not to have 
erred with intention. The writer is bound 
to be watchful. For, even in the fune- 
ral procession, Levity is sometimes seen 
to mix ; and stands perked up in a cor- 
ner of the aisle, with the grin half lined 
on his face, and prepared to come out 
full, in a moment, if but the slightest 
down from the plumage of the hearse, 
borne towards him by the gentlest breath, 
should chance to tickle his cheek. Hunc 
tu Romane caveto. 

" The unlettered Muse, spelling out 
" the names of the rustics upon their 
" tomb-stones," is a good image. It has 
in it more also of life than ParnelFs idea ; 

The flat smooth stones that bear a name, 
The chissel's slender help to fame. 



84 CRITICISM 

The " strewing of the holy texts/' too, is 
graphical. 

That some schooling is necessary to in- 
duce resignation to death, in general po- 
sition, is just; though not requiring the 
quantity of dilatation he has given it in 
the two following stanzas. Of the word 
" moralist/' the application is incorrect, 
and provincial. A moralist is " one who 
" teaches the duties of life." It is the 
unlettered Muse that is the moralist, not 
the rustic ; who only takes the lesson 
which his teacher offers to give. Should 
we even stretch the compass of the word, 
so as to make it comprehend both the 
teacher and the taught, the term would 
be still improper in this place. The les- 
sons are not in morality, but religion. 
They are not arguments, but authorities. 
I do not know that the verse would have 
suffered much, either in strength or beau- 



on gray's elegy. 85 

ty, had the author's piety persuaded him 
to present it thus ; 

That teach the rustic Christian how to die; 

Gray had too much devotion about him 
to be ashamed of the term Christian. 
His observations on Lord Shaftesbury's 
character and writings show that he was, 
himself, a Christian, although a polite 
man ; and that he had sense enough to 
see, and spirit enough to despise, the 
duplicity and cowardice of him, who 
rears up morality as a mole, which he 
may make use of in battering revela- 
tion. 

Should Criticism be asked, what ble- 
mish she has discovered in the two stan- 
zas that follow ; " For who to dumb for- 
getfulness, &c," she has this general ob- 
jection to propose against them, that 
thev are too diffusive. The thought has 
been already stated. Of that thought 
they are meant to be illustrative. But 

G 



86 CRITICISM 

the illustration is too long. Of correct 
writing, it is one of the essential laws 
not to swell out the comment so as to 
become more momentous than the text. 
The accessories are proper in their own 
place ; but to overlay the principal, they 
should never be allowed. 

What the first of these two stanzas 
chiefly holds out for censure, is its ex- 
pression. It is not clear in what view 
" forgetfulness" is pronounced " dumb." 
That what is not remembered will, of 
course, not be uttered, is a truth ; but 
of denominatives the selection is better 
made, by reference to the internal na- 
ture of the object, than to circumstances 
only consequential. " Warm precincts" 
has been censured ; and " precincts of 
day." Yet " luminis oras" is said by Vir- 
gil ; and " aridos fines Libyce" by more 
writers than I can name. " Precinct" is 
synonymous with " ora and "fines ;" and 
signifies not the " outline" only, but al- 



ON GRAY S ELEGY. 87 

so the " enclosed space." In this last 
sense, with the accent differently placed, 
it is used by Milton : * 

Through all restraint broke loose, he wings his way 
Not far off heaven, in the precincts of light, 
Directly towards the new-created world. 

That Gray, moving, himself, in the 
precincts of light, and within the pale 
of an university, claiming to herself a 
monopoly of that, and other sciences, 
should have so far unlearned the philo- 
sophy of light, as to suppose that the 
man who is placed in a region where 
light exists not, may take up the objects 
of sight, is matter of some surprise. He 
that has already left the precincts of 
day, will cast no " lingering look," ei- 
ther behind or before : he has no look 
to cast. Visibility and illumination re- 
ciprocate ; and, from a place to which 



1 Paradise Lost, iii. 87* 
U 



88 CRITICISM 

the rays from the object extend not, the 
object is not seen. 

Of " longing lingering look/' the con- 
struction, in respect to sound, is in his 
usual style. " High-born Hoel's harp/' 
" * Light Llewellyn's lay/' What is ac- 
quired to the description by the three l's 
in " longing lingering look," it is not easy 
to see. But criticism is willing to check 
the severity of censure for a fault, which 
critics have in a great measure caused. 
The lax and solemn dictates that have 
passed from mouth to mouth, upon the 
subject of Representative poetry, from 
the days of Homer to those of his trans- 
lator Pope, have misled men of greater 
taste and judgment than Gray. On this 
occasion, however, he seems to have for- 
got his accidence; and mistaken what 
his masters taught. Liquids, according 



1 "Soft" not (t light/' is the epithet, as it stands in Gray. 
'Editor, 



on gray's elegy. 89 

to the doctrines of the representative 
school, are imitative of accelerated mo- 
tion. Of these doctrines, in the present 
case, he has made but a froward appli- 
cation, when he marshals his liquids as 
representative of the motion of the lag- 
gard passengers that hang back in their 
way to death. 

Of all the elementary constituents of 
oral articulate sound, there is no one 
which has had more attention paid to it 
by the adepts in representative compo- 
sition, than the semi-vocal incomposite /. 
It is easy of access, ready to grant, or 
even proffer, its services ; and ever with- 
in call. To it, of all the rest, Gray seems 
to have paid peculiar court. The kind- 
ness of Dr Curzon, late of Brazen Nose, 
now residing in Italy for his health, and 
to whom I embrace this opportunity of 
recording my obligation for materials 
that have been of use to me in the pre- 
sent work, has put me in possession of a. 



go * CRITICISM 

little relic of Gray, furnishing a striking 
illustration of his fondness for this letter, 
and how much, as the Doctor terms it, it 
had insensibly gained his ear. Of this 
rehc J do not know that, in any edition 
of Gray's works, the communication has 
yet been indulged to the public; not even 
in that one, in which the author's literary 
correspondence, and fragments of pro- 
jected poems, have been printed. I am 
contented, therefore, to give it to the 
world, with part of the letter to the Doc- 
tor, in which it was inserted, as particu- 
larly connected with the present subject, 
and as illustrative, moreover, of that lead- 
ing feature in the character of Gray, the 
love of project ; hoping, that I may do 
so without offence ; as, in offering this 
gratification to rational literary curiosity, 
for which I have the Doctor's permission, 
1 invade no property, nor violate any 
known right. 



on gray's elegy. 91 

Of this piece the subject, when men- 
tioned, will convince those that write for 
the information of mankind at large, 
what danger attends the enunciation of 
universal propositions ; and how much 
credit with the public those have risked, 
who have taken upon them to maintain 
with pertinacity, that, at no period of his 
poetical life, Gray ever wrote verses on 
love. It is a little piece, somewhat of 
the Namby Pamby kind ; wrought up in 
the manner of a song, and composed (if 
one may judge, from internal marks, of 
writings whose dates are purposely con- 
cealed) at the particular time of his life 
at which his enthusiasm for Italian poe- 
try, and Italian music, raged most. He 
calls it a Poetical Rondeau; a title 
which probably he would have altered 
afterwards, had he thought the piece 
worth avowing. Of the nature of the 
project (for so he modestly enough calls 
it,) together with the view which gave 






9% CRITICISM 

rise to it, he gives the following account ; 
at once tending to shew it to be some- 
what singular, and proving the folly of 
him who, in this aged state of literary 
communication, shall say to himself, " Go 
to ; I shall sit down, and write me some- 
thing new." 

" I have often wondered," says he, 
" that the analogies of these sister arts 
" (he had been speaking of Poetry and 
" Music) have not been more keenly tra- 
" ced out, and marked, with a view to 
" mutual transference. Each has many 
** things in her budget, which she might 
" give out occasionally in loan to the 
" other, without inconvenience to her- 
" self. Music, for instance, who is the 
" more sprightly of the two, and more- 
" over the younger and handsomer — (but 
" let that be under the rose,) — having had 
" a great many different lovers, some of 
" them far-travelled, and very ton-\$h 9 
" of course, has picked up, during the 



on gray's elegy. 93 

& time they have danced after her, a 
" world of little curiosities and trinkets, 
" as well as things of more serious use, 
* 6 in the way of dress, ornament, &c. 
" with all which she occasionally tricks 
" herself off, and makes, in them, I as- 
" sure you, a charming sweet figure ; 
''she has also had, now and then, a 
" pensive lover : but from them she has 
" borrowed little else than serious raan- 
" ner ; which she very quickly puts off 
" again, lest, as she says, it spoil her flow 
" of spirits. So much for Miss Music. 
" Now for her sister; with whom, you 
" must know, I am a little acquainted. 
" She again is of a more steady deport- 
" ment ; keeps her looks very well ; has 
" no aversion to a frolic, now and then ; 
f* but, take notice, it must be with those 
" she is well acquainted with ; for she 
" is more reserved than her sister, and 
" sets up more on sense than sprightli- 



94 CRITICISM 

" ness. She, too, has had some lovers ; 
" though she does not give them much 
"encouragement, considering them, in 
" general, as danglers, yet, of the few 
" whom she esteemed, and thought she 
" could trust, she has not disdained, now 
" and then, to accept something in the 
" way of remembrance, and even to wear 
" it, occasionally, for their sake. Now, 
" what I would have these two ladies do 
" is this. I would have each of them 
" empty her drawers, and band-boxes, 
" throw all the things together, and turn 
" the two wardrobes into one. By this 
" means, as I told them, the things of 
" each would, in effect, be doubled ; for 
" the world is not to know. To this 
^scheme the younger, who thought it a 
" fine frolic, very readily agreed. The 
" elder has asked time to think of it ; 
" and, in the mean time, has got, at my 
" instigation, a milliner engaged to look 



on gray's elegy. 95 

<? over her sister's things, and see which 
" will fit her best. By particular desire 
" also of your humble servant, (nay don't 
" look wise, for ' pon 'onnor,' there is 
" nothing between us) she is to make 
" her first experiment to-morrow, and 
" come down to tea in a trim airy dress 
" of her sister's, which I always liked on 
" Miss Music, and which, I pledged my 
" taste, would become her too. 

" Quo te Mceri pedes f you say — Well, 
" as you have been civil, and have put 
" up your mae vi in your pocket, which 
" I grant you might have flung at me, 
" though, mark, the quantity would have 
" been out of measure — I say* as you have 
" dealt by me like a civil gentleman, I 
" am going to come down from my 
" flights, and tell you shortly what I 
" mean. Summa sequar fastigia rerum. 
" A long and unintermitted enthusiasm 
" for music has, you know, led, volventi- 
" bus annis, to the discovery of many 



Q6 CRITICISM 

w varied modes of musical expression, 
** and introduced multiplied mediums 
" of musical pleasure. There are many 
" of these which, I think, might be 
" transferred to the sister art, Poetry, 
" with success. The enclosed, which 
" you, no doubt, read before the letter, 
" and I hope have done me the honour 
" to pronounce the serious effusion of a 
" non-entbescend flame — (by the way, the 
" word is not yet English, I believe, 1 )— con- 
" tains an Essay Piece on the principle of 
" this scheme. The same is entitled a Po- 
" etical Rondeau. Nay, do not stare. 
u Be sure the stranger prove no old ac- 
" quaintance, before you thrust him from 
"your chambers, and shut the door in 
" his face. You know the principle 



x There is as yet no such English word. The word non- 
descript, lately introduced, upon a similar analogy, is not 
much less ridiculous. 



on gray's elegy. 97 

" of the Rondeau in Music. It is 6 to 
" give a subject ease by the familiarity 
" arising from repetition, and interest by 
" diversification/ What is known, al- 
" ternates with what is unknown. They 
" mutually lead in each other : and give 
" to each other a mutual relief. 1 The 
" little trifle I sent you enclosed, is an 
" attempt at this alternation, in Poetry. 
" Accordingly, when you have first duly 



1 Yielding to the suggestion of him, to whose civility I 
owe the letter, I submitted this passage of it to the consi- 
deration of a person, whom the doctor, with more of com- 
pliment than correctness, designates " a Professor of the 
art of Music/' The decision of this person is before me. 
It runs thus : " The Idea of the Rondeau in music is tolera- 
" bly correct. The perfection of the effect will be greatest 
" when the last bar of the departure, and theirs* bar 
" of the subject, in Return, identify in tone, but diver- 
" sify in accent ; the common note, or series, rising from 
" a soft to an enforced intonation, in gradual progression, 
" till the ear has hold of the Return as already com- 
" menced." — There may perhaps be found those who will 
understand the meaning, and reconcile themselves to the 
diction, of this award. 

12 



98 CRITICISM 

" armed yourself with your double con- 
" eaves, you shall see, in the piece be- 
" fore you, first of all, come in, as in M u- 
" sic — the Subject; which is afterwards 
" to come in, as the Return. This sub- 
" ject you shall see to be taken from the 
" department of Love ; viz. " the pain 
" of parting ;" which subject, Beattie, if 
" you find him in the humour, will pour 
" away to you, with his usual sensibili- 
" ty mutatis mutandis, in the charac- 
" ter of Polly Peachum. 1 Well then, the 
" subject drawing to a close, you shall 
" see us nick the time, and prepare the 
" last cadence, so as to lead in what 
" seems to be a new subject, but is no- 
" thing but a modification of the old ; — 
" this is the first departure ; which must 
" be so managed as to preserve, at the 
" close of it, a ready lead in to the re- 



Beggar's Opera. " Oh what pain it is to part/' &c. 



ox gray's elegy. 99 

« turn, — which now makes its appear- 
" ance again,— shews away a little,— and 
" then — leads off to the second depar- 
" ture. This must be, at once, a diver- 
" sification of the subject, and of the first 
" departure ;— it may contain a more la- 
" boured air, and greater changes of key ; 
" or, &c— we must not, however, keep 
" long upon it : for lo ! cometh the Re- 
" turn anew ; — then, lead we off to the 
" third departure, with a very learned 
" modulation, plying in so, at the end, 
" however, as to admit the Return, a 
" fourth time. Now for the great trial 
" of skill, in leading off to the last de- 
" parture, which is to be a minore ; and 
" must, if it is to be worth a farthing, 
" be connected, at the expence of some 
" pains, with the closing cadence of the 
" Return that precedes it. Then warble 
" away at the minore itself; which must 
" repay the favour, and make way, com- 



100 CRITICISM 

" teously, for the said Return ; which Re- 
" turn now comes in, once more, to claim 
" on her first occupancy, and remain 
" mistress of the premises. Thus far 
" Theory, — now enter Practice." 



a 



ON GRAY'S ElEGY. 101 



POETICAL RONDEAU. 

First to love,— and then to part, — 

Long to seek a mutual heart,— 

Late to find it, — and, again, 

Leave, and lose it — oh ! the pain I v 
Some have loved, and loved (they say) 
'Till they loved their love away ; 
Then have left ; to love anew : 
But, I wot, they loved not true ! 

True to love, — and then to part,— 

Long to seek a mutual heart, — 

Late to find it, — and, again, 

Leave, and lose it — oh ! the pain ! 

Some have loved, to pass the time ; 
And have loved their love in Rhyme : 
Loath'd the love; and loath'd the song: 
But their love could not be strong ! 

Strong to love, — and then to part, — 

Long to seek a mutual heart, — 

Late to find it, — and, again, 

Leave and lose it— oh ! the pain ! 

Some have just but felt the flame, 
Lightly lambent o'er their frame,— 
Light to them the parting knell : 
For, too sure, they loved not well ! 

Well to love, — and then to part, — 

Long to seek a mutual heart, — 

Late to find it,— and, again, 

Leave, and lose it — oh ! the pain ! 
But, when once the potent dart, 
Centring, rivets heart to heart, 
'Tis to tear the closing wound, 
Then to sever what is bound. 

Bound, to love, — and then to part,— 

Long to seek a mutual heart,— 

Late to find it,—- and, again, 

Leave, and lose it — oh ! the pain ! . . . . 



Nous voitt — and now for my friend 
Bentley, to do me off nicely the de- 

H 



]02 CRITICISM 

"vice; being two faithful hearts, that 
" shall appear both two and one ; so 
" closely seem they hasped together with 
" a true love dart : the barb holding fast 
" the one, and the ' grey goose wing that 
" is thereon' the other. Take notice, 
" though— the other is the female heart : 
" take notice of the emblem, too. It is 
" only kept on by the feather. A light 
" puff will make it slip off/' 

Thus far the letter, and its illustration. 
To him who is not an adept in any art, 
it is a matter of difficulty to ascertain 
whether he has apprehended aright the 
import of the technical terms and phrases 
used in the language of that art. But, if 
I have attained a proper conception of 
what is aimed at in the levity now in- 
serted, the idea itself is not so novel, as 
the manner of stating it seems to make 
it Of the ancient Dithyrambick Odes, 
whose chief excellence seems to have 
been their obscurity and affectation, 
(qualities in which they might find ma- 



ON GRAY'S ELEGY. 103 

ny of the modern lyrical compositions 
qualified to vie with them,) a particular 
species were denominated Cyclic, or cir- 
cular. These circular odes probably pro- 
ceeded on the principle of Gray's Poeti- 
cal Rondeau ; f as did also certain of the 
more sprightly and convivial songs, or 
glees ; such, for example, as that one of 
Anacreon, of which the return-verse is 
'Or lyca iria rov oivov, — ■ 

1 The person designated above, pronounces, in relation 
to the application of the principle of the Musical Rondeau 
to Poetry, the following judgment : * In this transference, 
*' an analogous identification and diversification should be 
"felt in the thought, and marked in the recitations 
"The words "true," " strong/' " well," " bound," 
" in the specimen, each presenting itself twice to the eye, 
" should, notwithstanding, be contemplated by the mind, 
" and enunciated by the oral organs, each, as an unit; 
" the conception and the voice, passing from the first to 
" the second occurrence with versatility, and on the in- 
" stant. Thus, the recollection of it, as close, will be 
" lost in its transit ; or rather merged in its new character, 
" as return; upon the principle of the modern Polacca, 
" or ancient AMPHiBRACHic."...Had this arbiter present- 
ed himself in person, and offered illustration, it is possible 
some idea might have been made out of his meaning, such 
as it is, or may be. At present, the thought appears unap* 
pretiable, and the phraseology approaches to a jargon. 



104 CRITICISM 

As to the levity itself, I think it may be 
said with truth, that its composition must 
have cost more * labour than it is ever 
likely to pay. It holds of the Italian 
school; has in it more of sound than 
sense; and the little sense it has is not 
much helped forward by the sound ; 
notwithstanding the accelerating power 
of the letter /,* which he has here employ- 
ed upon the principles of his masters, 
although with too much profusion, and 
scarcely with any success. Enough of 
the letter /; Representative poetry ; and 
Poetical Rondeaus. 3 



1 See particularly the last Close and Return. 

a Certain other letters are supposed, by the critics allu- 
ded to, to be endowed with an opposite power. The letter 
V is conceived to be of that order, and as such employed 
by Virgil in that line of singular alliteration, Mx* vi. 834, 
" Neu Patriae Validas in Viscera Vertite Vires !" 

s [The Editor agrees in opinion with the Author of the 
Criticism, in his stricture upon the Pretensions to No- 
velty, of the Idea, held out in the letter from which the 
above extract is given, and on the illustration and ma- 
nagement of it, in the piece annexed as a specimen. 
Verses, under different titles, are to be found, in all Ian- 



on gray's elegy, 105 



XXIII. 



In the twenty-third stanza, the last of 
the four formerly mentioned, is held out 
a sentiment which criticism is willing to 
praise, till, collecting her ideas, she re- 
members having bestowed praise on its 
contrary. Does the " some fond breast," 
do the " some pious drops/' alluded to, 
contribute to take from the bitterness of 
death, and smooth the passage to the 
world of spirits ? So says Gray. But 



guages, proceeding, in different degrees, and some of them 
whimsically enough, upon that idea. The subjoined Trifle 
is formed, in part, upon it ; though all the resources al- 
luded to, those particularly of a more technical kind, 
are not called in to contribute to the intended effect,. 
It is to be found cloathed with an highly elegant and 
appropriate Melody ' by that great master of the school 
of Simplicity, the late Mr Jackson, of Exeter ; whose 
truly classical compositions will long be relished by those 
who seek for a temperate and quiet enjoyment in ths 
meeker and more gentle effusions of Musical Expression, 

* Opera xv'u Song. 8. 



106 CRITICISM 

what says Parnel, 1 in a case pretty simi- 
lar ? Audi alteram partem : 

Nor can the parted body know, 

Nor needs the soul, these forms of woe. 



dictated by correct discrimination, and regulated by 
the chastest Taste. His Saltern accumulem Donis** • • !] 

SOBER ANACREONT1CK. 

I. 

If the watchful eye of Care 

Could out-watch Death, or trouble scare,.... 

If Thought could think Mishap away, 

Then 'twere folly to be gay. 

II. 
If the briny streams that flow 
Could exhaust the springs of woe, 
Then to weep were wisdom sure : 
Though harsh the physic, sweet the cure ! 

III. 
If the sigh that rends the heart 
Could force a way for pain to part, 
Then I'd sigh, and vent my grief; 
And bless the pang that brought relief! 

IV 
If the anguish-prompted moan 
Could charm me back the bliss that s flown. 
The wail of woe should woe destroy, 
And mourn the sorrow into joy ! 

V. 
If, when disasters rudely press, 
To sink were to elude distress, 
Sweet Siren, Hope, I'd fly thy snare, 
And, wistful, woo the hag Despair ! 

VI 
But, if on Evil fix'd to dwell 
Serves but the sum of ill to swell. . _ . 
If bodeful musings, grief-wrung tears, 
But fret our wounds — encrease our fears, . . , 

VII. 
Unbend we, quick, the brow of Care ; 
And, while the destined load we bear, 
Light of heart, let's urge our way : 
It is wisdom to be gay! 

1 Night- Piece. 



on gray's elegy. 107 

And Thomson ? « 

How many stand 



Around the death-bed of their dearest friends, 
And point the parting anguish ! 

Sterne too, whose dissipation was too 
short-lived, completely to destroy in him 
the seeds of sensibility and nature, has 
described > in a book of which perhaps 
one fifth part is worth reading, the sym- 
pathies of surrounding friends, as con- 
stituting the acutest part of a dying man's 
anguish. Having recorded his wish to 
die in an inn (a species of death for 
which there will be few competitors,) 
he proceeds thus : " At home, — I know 
" it, — the concern of my friends, and the 
" last services of wiping my brow, and 
" smoothing my pillow, which the qui- 
" vering hand of pale Affection shall pay 
" me, will so crucify my soul, that I shall 



I Winter. 



108 CRITICISM 

" die of a distemper which my physician 
" is not aware of/' 

Amongst Doctors who thus disagree, 
who shall settle the dispute ? To a mind 
given to shift its views, and to sensibili- 
ties not yet properly made up, both as- 
pects of the fact, and both impressions 
of the sentiment, offer themselves in turn ; 
and both are in turn approved. Of this 
vicissitude of feeling, no man is without 
his share. As the frame of the mind al- 
ters, so alter its likings, and its prepos- 
session in favour of a sentiment, or its 
opposite. Of sentiments exclusively just, 
the catalogue would be but small. Re- 
lative truth is all we have a title to ex- 
pect in the department of taste ; of 
which, as no standard exists, it is vain 
to suppose any standard should be found. 
Scepticism, dangerous in philosophy, and 
impious in religion, urges a reasonable 
plea for admission into the court of cri- 
ticism ; of whose decisions she may tern- 



on gray's elegy. 109 

per the severity, and diminish the self- 
importance. 

With these mutually contradictory sen- 
timents (to which the late Mr Savage gave 
the name of ambidextrous, and of which 
he had made large collections from the 
body of English poetry that then exist- 
ed,) — sentiments to which the mind makes 
alternate love, as the antiquary bestows 
his admiration, now on the Head of the 
medal, and now on the Reverse, the wri- 
tings of all authors of fancy are replete. 
We recognise them, at times contradict- 
ing each other, and at times contradict- 
ing themselves. The language of the 



* The appropriation of the word is contrary to analogy. 
Colliding would have been more proper. On the occasions 
alluded to, it is the mind that is ambidextrous; not these/*- 
timents. Savage, whose fancy led him to form more pro- 
jects than his means allowed him to execute, seems to have 
intended some work upon this subject. But to render the 
design complete, his Collections, of which I retain an indis- 
tinct idea, should have taken in prose- writers as well as 
poets, and other languages as well as the English. 



110 CRITICISM 

Leasowes is, that to the passionate lover, 
the wonted haunts of the beloved object 
give gratification, when from these haunts 
she is absent. 

They tell me, my favourite maid, 
The pride of that valley, is gone : 
Alas ! where with her I have strayed, 
I could wander with pleasure, alone.* 

The image is one that pleases for the 
time : but, reflected from the lakes of 
Hagley, which is only a few miles off, it 
meets the eye with its form inverted, 
and yet it pleases still. 

The shades of Hagley now have lost their boast.— 
How, in the world, to me a desart grown, 
Abandoned and alone, 
Without my sweet companion, can I live ? * 

There are frames of mind that suit ei- 
ther view. It is not in poetry as in logic. 



1 Shenstone. Absense, 
* Littleton. Monody. 



on gray's elegy. Ill 

Here two contradictories may dwell to- 
gether, each of equal authority with its 
opposite. 

Though poetry may be justifiable in 
presenting us with opposite views, each 
of which may be true for the time, yet 
she ought to beware, when she is deal- 
ing out her universal?, that she offer us 
not a relative in place of an absolute 
truth. It is in this view that Gray is 
censurable in the present instance. That 
the sympathies of friends give ease to a 
dying man, may be, in general, as just 
a sentiment as that they give him pain ; 
that they soften his anguish, as that they 
point it : but, here, the enunciation is di- 
dactic. The poet speaks in no charac- 
ter, and to no particular class, but brings 
forth the sentiment in the form of a po- 
sition ; and, considered as a position, it 
js not true. 

The third line of the stanza contains 



112 CRITICISM 

an hyperbole, which is out-hyperboled 
in the fourth : 



Even from the grave the voice' of Nature cries 
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires. 



—a position at which Experience revolts, 
Credulity hesitates, and even Fancy stares. 
He who can bring himself to believe, 
that he has heard the voice of Nature 
crying from the grave of a dead man, is 
in train to assent, in time, to the propo- 
sition, that " even in our ashes live their 
wonted fires :" though Friendship should 
caution him to stop short, and Pleasan- 
try suggest to him that surface-views are 
oft delusive ; and that he may find him- 
self, on this occasion, if he goes farther 
on, incedere per igxes suppositos cineri 
doloso. But I am ashamed of the ex- 
penditure of precious time, incurred by 
the examination of a proposition con- 
trary to all truth, abstract or poetical ; 
which Madness cannot shape itself t® 



on gray's elegy, us 



the conviction of; nor elongations, more 
than Pindaric, bring imagination in con- 
tact with, even for a moment. 

What makes this conceit (if by the 
name conceit may be called that which 
cannot be conceived) the more unpar- 
donable in Gray is, that, (by a process 
of judgment the reverse of that former- 
ly commemorated, with regard to the 
closing line of a stanza in his Ode on 
Spring) he introduced the line, in which 
it is conveyed, in place of another ; 
and as an improvement of the original 
thought.' The stanza, in its first state, 
concluded with this line, 

" Awake and faithful to her wonted fires ;" 

which, if we chasten still farther, upon 
the suggestion of Mr Mason, into 

Awake and faithful to her Jirst desires ; 



Mason. 



114 CRITICISM 

we shall then, instead of two hyperboles, 
have only one, lengthened by the addi- 
tion of a trail. I think Mason has in- 
formed us, that he advised him to alter 
the line. But Gray could not afford to 
want it : for here, it is probable, he once 
intended to conclude the Elegy; and 
this mode of " twirling off the thought 
into an apophthegm," he thought the 
most imposing he was likely to find. 

Gray has, in a note on this line, en- 
deavoured to justify the thought by a 
reference to a passage in Petrarch. But 
no authority can give dignity to non- 
sense, or transmute false taste into true. 
As to the writings of Petrarch, it may be 
allowed that, in them, as in most of the 
Italian poetry, many instances of con- 
ceit occur. Yet more have been fancied 
than found. A poet who possesses this 
vein in himself, imagines that he meets 
with it wherever he goes. Thoughts ap- 
parelled in the simplest garb, appear to 

13 



on gray's elegy. 115 

him drest out in point. The ideas, that 
pass in review before him, partake of 
the colour of his mind ; and his fancy, 
like Shakespear's green-eyed monster, 
" makes the food it feeds on." Ovid 
abounds in conceits, and quaintnesses ; 
but the eyes of Cowley multiplied them, 
as they did those of Petrarch, to infi- 
nity. 

After reference thus soberly made to 
the authority of Petrarch, Curiosity will, 
no doubt, prick up his ears when he is 
told, that the passage, quoted from that 
poet, contains not the sentiment in ques- 
tion. Mason, whose taste was too good 
to make him admit the authority of Pe- 
trarch in defence of an unnatural thought, 
seems not, however, to have doubted 
that the thought was really Petrarch's. 
And, indeed, if, of the sonnet referred to, 
the three lines quoted by Gray be taken, 
detached from the rest, they may, though 
somewhat awkwardly, be forced into the 



116 CRITICISM 

expression of that thought. Taken along 
with the context, and in connection 
with its design, the wildness of the idea 
vanishes, and propriety and nature in- 
vest it. 

The poet is complaining of the hope- 
lessness of his love. 1 " The flame I che- 
" rish," says he, " how intense ! yet how 
u unrewarded ! and even unperceived ! 
" unperceived by her, whom alone I wish 
" to recognise it, though marked by all 
" besides ! Ah, distrustful fair-one ! in 
" whom much beauty is mixed with lit- 
" tie faith, look at my love-lorn eye, and 
" doubt my passion, if you can. No, you 
" cannot, you do not, doubt it ; but my 
" luckless star hardens your heart against 
" my ardent love. Yet not altogether 
" unrewarded shall be my passion, al- 
" though unrewarded by you. The tune- 



* Petr. Son. 170, 

6 



ON GRAY'S ELEGY. 117 

" ful homage, which you regard not, shall 
" gain me immortal fame. The flame, 
"which you repay not with kindred 
" flame, shall spread its contagion over 
" many hearts. As a living principle, it 
" shall pervade my verse. I see it, in 
" Fancy's eye, shooting its sparks into 
" future ages ; and {when the two fair 
" orbs that inspired it are closed, and the 
" tongue that sung their praises is cold) 

" . . . . SETTING THE WORLD ON FIRE !" 

Versified thus : 

Ah ! how within me glows the subtle flame I 
To all but one fair infidel confess'd. 
She, only dear, supreme in worth and fame, 
She only, doubts her empire in my breast : 
Thou rich in beauty ! — yet, in faith how poor ! 
Speaks not my fever'd eye the wasting grief? 
—But for my luckless star, ere now, full sure, 
Some drops from Pity's fount had brought relief. 

Yet glows not, meedless quite, the warm desire ; — 
But, when OU? dust has filled the fatal urn, 

Long, in my verse, shall live the gonial fire, 
Which warm'd thy bosom cold to no return. — 

Wide shall its sparks the kindred flame inspire; 
And other Lauras melt ; — and other Petrarchs mourn S 

So much for this celebrated sentiment, 
i 



11$ CRITICISM 

in the $legy written in a Country Church- 
yard ; a sentiment which it is heresy not 
to support, and sluggishness not to feel : 
and so much for the passage of Petrarch, 
on which Gray supposed he had built it. 
If* one line, in which there is a little of 
point, be excepted, the sonnet of which 
it makes the close, is as simple as ever 
was sung. A tuneful lover consoles him- 
self for the hardness of his mistress's 
heart, by anticipating the enthusiasm 
with which posterity will read the verses, 
in which he has sung her praise. Here 
is no voice of Nature crying from the 
grave of the dead ; here are no inurned 
ashes glowing with posthumous fires. It 
is not the ashes of Petrarch and Laura 
that glow, but posterity that glows, when 
Petrarch and Laura are no more. 2 



* " Fredda una lingua, et due begli occhi chiusi." 

* I subjoin the Sonnet at length, as Petrarch gave it. I 
observe Castelvetro has explained the passage as the 



ON GRAY S ELEGY. 1 19 

On this sonnet of Petrarch, mishap 
seems to have been entailed. Cowley, 
to whom Petrarch was an inexhaustible 
mine, struck upon it, in one of his days 
of digging. He knew it, by its general 
appearance, to be ore, and set himself 
accordingly to smelt it ; but so clumsily 
did he perform the operation, and so 



author of the Criticism apprehends it. " Che quos ;" in 
reference to " millc" The misconception of this reference, 
and an inattention to the absolute construction, in the verse, 
" Fredda una lingua, e duo begli occhi chiusi," seem to have 
given rise to the English poet's mistake. — Editor. 

Lasso, Ch'i' ardo ; ed altri non mel crede : 

Si crede ogni uom, se non sola colei 

Ch'e sovr' ogni altra, e ch' i' sola vorrei : 

Ella non par che'l creda, e si sel vede : 
Infinita bellezza, e poca fede, 

Non vedete voi'l cor negli occhi miei ? 

Se non fosse mia stella, i' pur devrei 

Al fonte di pieta trovar mercede. 
Quest' arder mio, di clie vi cal si poco, 

E i vostri onori in mie rime diffusi 

Ne porian' infiaramar fors ancor mille : 
Ch' i veggio nel pensier, dolce mio foco, 

Fredda una lingua, e duo begli occhi chiusi. 

Rimaner dopo noi pien' di faville. 

3 



IgO CRITICISM 

much heterogeneous metal did he suffer 
to run into it, that the most skilled as- 
sayers will scarcely know to what speci- 
men to refer it. It is wrought up into 
one of the pieces of The Mistress, and is 
here given to the reader, both as being 
a curiosity in itself, and as illustrating 
the part of Cowley's poetical character, 
hinted in these strictures on Gray, and 
stated, elsewhere, at length. 

HER UNBELIEF. 

I. 

'Tis a strange kind of unbelief in you, 
That you your vict'ries should not spy : 
Vict'ries begotten by your eye.— 
That your bright beams, as those of comets do, 
Should kill ; but not know how, or who. 

II. 

That, truly, you my idol may appear, 

Whilst all the people smell, and see, 

The od'rous flames I offer thee, 

Thou sitt'st, and do'st not see, nor smell, nor hear, 

Thy constant, zealous, worshipper ! 



on gray's elegy. 121 



III. 



They see't too well, who at ray fires repine ; 
Nay, th' unconcern'd themselves do prove 
Quick-eyM enough to spy my love. 
Nor does the cause in thy face clearer shine, 
Than the effect appears in mine. 

IV. 

Fair infidel ! by what unjust decree, 
Must I, who, with such restless care, 
Would make this truth to thee appear,-— 
Must I, who preach, and pray for't, be 
Damn'd, by thy incredulity ? 

V. 

I, by thy unbelief, am, guiltless, slain : 
O have but faith ; and then, that you 
That faith may know for to be true, 
It shall itself b' a miracle maintain; 
And raise me from the dead again.- — &c. 



What an heterogeneous mass is here ! 
what a chaos of jarring elements ! JFn- 
gida pugnantia calidi% humentia siccis ! 
This strange mistress is, first, an infidel ; 

then she is a gainer of battles ; which 
battles are begot ; and their father is 
her eye. That eye, however, is a blind 



122 CRITICISM 

one ; as blind as a comet. Then she grows 
into the idol Baal ; and is not only blind 
but deaf; and moreover without the sense 
of smelling : but that does not hinder 
her face from shining. Next she is trans- 
formed into Cause ; and her lover into 
Effect : after which she becomes an infi- 
del again ; and her lover is transformed 
into a priest ; in which character he both 
preaches and prays, to convert her ; but 
all to no purpose : — for, after having run 
the risk of damnation, he is actually made 
to suffer death. Yet that does not damp 
his zeal. He is resolved to make one trial 
more; and, finding all other arguments 
fail, proposes the powerful one of mira- 
cles ; undertaking, if she will first believe 
on trust, to rise, himself, from the dead, 
in order to confirm her faith ! — Such is 
the process in this piece ; a process, in 
the contemplation of which Reason feels 
herself humbled ; and Fancy, put to 
shame ; whilst Religion reclaims, indig- 



on gray's elegy. 123 

riant that her mysteries should suffer 
profanation, by such absurd and wan- 
ton allusions. 



What now remains of the Elegy, par- 
takes of the nature of an After-piece. 
In his " Elegy to the Memory of an Un- 
fortunate Lady," the vanity of Pope had 
tempted him to introduce himself. For 
this he had some plausible colour; as 
with this lady (who seems to have been 
more foolish than unfortunate, and to 
discover whose family, and private his- 
tory, curiosity has laboured in vain) he 
had, or thought it creditable to be thought 
to have had, some connection, in the way 
of friendship or love. The example of 
Pope has, in this instance, been imita- 
ted by Gray, who had not the same mo- 
tive to inspire the design, nor the same 
ability to regulate its execution. In the 



124 CRITICISM 

abruptness of the introduction of their 
own affairs, and the want of art in en- 
grafting them on the general design, 
there is a considerable similarity. The 
little that Pope had to say of himself, he 
thought likely to come best from his own 
mouth. Gray, who has not said much 
more of himself, has put what is to be 
said in the mouth of another. Pope has 
alluded to his own death ; but Gray, ad- 
vancing a step farther, has proceeded to 
the circumstances of his burial, and even 
given us the epitaph on his stone. Of 
this After-piece, rather adhering to the 
Elegy than uniting with it, criticism 
thinks it unnecessary that the examina- 
tion should be minute or long. 



on gray's elegy. 125 



XXIV. 



That a " kindred spirit" should be 
more interested in the fate of the writer, 
than one of a different temperament, is 
natural ; but how this kindred spirit 
should, in his lonely contemplations, 
stumble into the same Churchyard in 
which this Elegy was written, we search 
in vain for a probable account. One is 
tempted to suppose Gray to have some- 
times figured this Elegy as fixed up in 
the Country Church-yard, as well as ori- 
ginally penned in it. But this only leads 
us from one incongruity, to land us im- 
mediatel} T in another. Why does the 
kindred spirit enquire the fate of him, 
whose fate is commemorated in the Ele- 
gy that made him originally known ? as 
is also the very enquiry he is here sup- 
posed to make. But I hasten from this 
part of the piece, afraid of being invol- 



19,6 CRITICISM 

ved in its entanglements, and apprehen- 
sive of the confusion of ideas that it 
seems to threaten to him who shall dwell 
on it long. 

That Gray, in a work so serious, should 
have intended to amuse himself* or his 
reader, with picturing the talkativeness 
of the rustic character, or the excursive- 
ness of narrative age, I am not willing 
to believe. But certain it is, that the 
" hoary-headed swain" tells the " kin- 
dred spirit" more than was asked of 
him ; and, instead of simply relating 
the fate of the writer, enters somewhat 
diffusely into his character. Here, again, 
the manners are violated ; and the rus- 
tic is made to tell his tale, in language 
the most chaste and polished, and in 
style the most poetical, that the Elegy 
contains. Gray seems, by a kind of per- 
verseness of application, to have finish- 
ed off this passage with all the care of 
which he was master; and to have given 



ON GRAY S ELEGY. 127 

it out of his hand with a consciousness 
of success, that brings back to memory 
the self-complacency of Bayes, after one 
of his most ranting passages, in which 
he thinks he has brought out every ex- 
cellence to which even his powers were 
adequate — " That is as well as I can 
do." 

That Gray should have formed a wish 
to exert himself with more than ordi- 
nary earnestness on a subject so near to 
him, is not to be wondered at. But he 
forgets that the enthusiasm and fancy, 
which might be allowable in a descrip- 
tion of his character, when that descrip- 
tion came from himself, are inadmissible 
in the mouth of another, and that other 
a stranger, and a clown. But this is one 
of the most strongly marked peculiari- 
ties of his poetical temperament. He is 
always more attentive to the grandeur 
and magnificence of his building, than 
to the propriety of its site, He is e^yer 



128 CRITICISM 

meditating a great structure ; taking it 
for granted, that it may stand in all 
places alike. From all quarters he fa- 
tigues himself in collecting ponderous 
and bulky materials, which he encou- 
rages himself to pile up, till they shall 
have reached the Empyreum ; without 
considering the incongruities in the de- 
sign, or the obstacles that may ruin its 
execution : like the commemorated pro- 
jectors of a tower that was to reach to 
heaven, which they began to build in a 
plain, and without considering that the 
very laws of matter, on which the ope- 
ration of building proceeds, entailed im- 
practicability. The epithet <piXo*oMrc&roc> 
bestowed by an ancient critic l on Euripi- 
des, may, with propriety, be transferred to 
Gray ; as may also the critic's description 
of the strained and laboured elevation of 



1 Longin. de Sublim. 



on gray's elegy. 129 

that poet's tragical imagery, in which 
he is ludicrously compared to Homer's 
Lion, " lashing his hips with his tail, 
and forcing himself forward to fight/' 



XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. XXIX. 

vNor is much of the poet's character 
unfolded by the rustic ; though many 
words are used. " That he was a man 
" given to musing ; that he loved to 
" meet the sun in the morning, and to 
" repose in the shade at noon ; that he 
" walked by the side of a wood, and 
" lounged on the bank of a brook ; and 
" that, after having been two days miss- 
" ing, he was decently buried, on the 
" third, at the foot of an old thorn- — is 
all that the hoary-headed swain can say 
about him : for the rest he refers to the 
Epitaph, or, as he calls it, the Lay, en- 



130 CRITICISM 

graved upon his tombstone ; and which 
lay, from the kindred spirit's knowing him 
by this Elegy, he doubts not he is qua- 
lified to read. Here is little gratifica- 
tion to curiosity : and, as to the original 
question about his fate, we are left al- 
most as much in the dark as before. 
That he is now dead and buried, is all 
of his fate we know : though the short- 
ness of the interval between his burial, 
and the time when he was last seen, 
with his loitering so much by the side of 
the water, furnishes, in the case of so 
melancholy a man, matter for further 
conjecture, and wakes suspicion of sui- 
cide. 

Of the three-stanza'd Epitaph, which 
the rustic terms a Lay, the supplemen- 
tal information is not great. " That he 
" was poor, obscure, pensive, not un- 
" learned, sympathising, and blessed with 
# a friend (1 suppose of his own sex) with 



on ghay's elegy. 131 

" something more that might be men- 
" tioqed, were it not needless to go deep 
" into the character of a dead man" — 
is all the information we draw from it ; 
information not momentous enough to 
make us regret the want of more. 

The manner in which the character is 
" made out/' though in particular in- 
stances fortunate, is not without faults. 
The hastiness of his steps in mounting 
" the upland lawn," and the purpose for 
which he mounts it, are circumstances 
more associab.le with the Allegro cha- 
racter, than with the Penseroso. So 
thought the great discriminator of these 
characters. His man of cheerfulness is 
eager to observe the glory of the rising 
sun; his pensive man's morning is not 
bright; but * " kerchief d in a comely 
cloud." So also Thomson, to whose au- 



1 Milton, Penseroso, 



132 CRITICISM 

thority, on most occasions, he has not 
scorned to pay some regard : 

As, through the failing glooms, 
Pensive I stray ; or, with the rising dawn, 
On Fancy's eagle wing excursive soar. 1 

In Thomson these actions belong to 
two descriptions of character. Gray has 
wrought both into one. If the " steps" 
must be " hasty/' the operation of brush- 
ing the dew from the grass will not help 
him to mend his pace ; it is an action 
tending rather to impede accelerated 
motion, than to promote it. 

" Chance," in the twenty-fifth stanza, 
used adverbially, though justified by a 
Latin idiom, is rebating to an English 
ear. But the poet was in distress. The 
necessity of his situation called for the 
idea twice, within the compass of three 
lines. A word of two syllables brought 



1 Summer. 



ON gray's elegy. 3 33 

him relief in the one case ; and a word 
of one syllable in the other. He could 
not use " haply" twice. " Lonely con- 
templation/' is not well said. Who is 
there that goes into company to con- 
template ? One is surprised to see a wri- 
ter, who deals in " trembling hope," 
" living ashes/' " little great/' put up 
so contentedly with " solemn stillness/' 
" lonely contemplation/' and " flowers 
that blow." Gray, speaking of water, 
has used " ambient tide." He that has 
dipt much in " ambient tide," will soon 
emerge to " ambient air :" then we shall 
find him among " feathered songsters ;" 
a set of company rarely now to be met 
with even in Poetry's horn-book. 

" His poring on the brook," is charac- 
teristical. But his stretching himself at 
the foot of a beech, is no more than the 
lounging Tityrus had done before him. 
Tityrus' beech is a spreading one, as 
what beech is not ? Of Gray's beech it 

K 



134 CRITICISM 

is left to be supposed that it spreads ; 
but we are expressly told that it nods ; 
and that it " wreathes its old fantastic 
roots high." What is meant by a tree 
wreathing its roots high ? Vegetation 
seems here inverted, and age endowed 
with the pliancy of youth* 

Theory can, in no other way, account 
for the strange form in which this beech 
appears, than by supposing it to have 
been an image, not of fancy, but of fact. 
A mind strongly irritable upon the ap- 
proximation of external forms, treasures 
up the grotesque images both of living 
and still nature, as they present them- 
selves, and brings them forth, afterwards, 
as the effects of inspiration. Gray had 
casually come in the way of some lusus 
nature of the beech tribe, of whose fan- 
tastic form the outline had continued 
upon his mind, and imprest his fancy 
with a vivid picture. Of Gray's inspi- 
rations, it is known, that many derived 



on gray's elegy. 135 

their origin from casual impressions, made 
on the organs of sense. The sight of the 
Welch harper, Parry, ' and the rapture 
he felt at his execution, animated him 
to the finishing his " Bard/' after it had 
lain by, for two years, hopeless : and the 
" loose beard" and " hoary hair stream- 
ing to the wind," with which he has in- 
vested his tuneful Cambrian, were de- 
rived from a representation, by Ra- 
phael, of the Supreme Being, in the vi- 
sion of Ezekiel.* 

The beech seems literally to have been 
Gray's " favourite tree ;" and, in the con- 
templation of it, in all its varieties, he 
seems to have passed many poetical 
hours. In the year 1737, he met with 
beeches, in grounds belonging to his 
uncle, of so singular a character, that 
I am willing to indulge the reader with 



Mason. a Ibid. 



136 CRITICISM 

the description of them, in the poet's own 
words/ 

And, as they bow their hoary tops, relate, 

In murmuring sounds, the dark decrees of fate ; 

While visions, as poetic eyes avow, 

Cling to each leaf, and swarm on every bough. 

On such beeches it was his fortune again 
to stumble in Italy, after an interval of 
three years ; and them also he has cele- 
brated, though in the ancient language 
of their country.* 

Haerent sub omni nam folio nigri 
Phoebaea luci (credite) somnia; 
Arguti usque et lympha et aurae 
Nescio quid solito loquuntur. 5 



* Mason. * Ibid. 

3 Of visions in Jieri, latent on the leaves of trees, till 
poetic eyes shall look them into form, the conception, un- 
less borrowed from the Norse, may be new : though it was 
the opinion of Dr Blake, that the Fancy of Gray was se- 
cretly led, in the formation of it, by the obscure recollec- 
tion of the Legend of Sir John Mandeville, according to 
which, in certain very cold latitudes, articulate sounds were 
arrested by the frost, at the moment of their emission from 
the mouth of $he speaker, and continued in that torpid 



©n gray's elegy. 137 

The thorn in Glastonbury Church-yard 
is known to have suggested to Gray, in 
the Elegy, the idea of that thorn, un- 
der which he fancies himself as buried. 
What particular beech he had in his 
eye, there is now no means of knowing. 
Chronology forbids us to suppose it to 
have been the beech which he found in 
the Highlands of Scotland, and which, 
to the astonishment of less fortunate tra- 
vellers, he reports, upon his own mensu- 
ration, to have been upwards of sixteen 
feet in the girth, and no less than eighty 
feet high. 1 

Why the pensive man should lie ra- 
ther under the shade of a beech, than 
under any other shady tree, save Gray's 
predilection for the beech, no reason can 
be assigned. In a situation nearly simi- 



state, until they were again thawed into vocality, by the 
return of the warm season ! 

1 Mason, 



138 CRITICISM 

Jar, Thomson stretches himself under an 
oak. The general idea is the same. 

■ — — Let me haste into the mid-wood shade, 
Where scarce a sun-beam wanders thro' the gloom ; 
And, on the dark green grass, beside the brink 
©f haunted stream, that, by the roots of oai^. 
Rolls o'er the rocky channel, lie at large. 1 



XXX. XXXL XXXII. 

Of the Epitaph much more need not 
be said. The head of him who is im«* 
mersed in the earth, can with little pro- 
priety be said to " rest on her lap/' The 
transference of the word lap, is not hap- 
py. It is " velvet green" over again. 
The ground of the objection is the same. 
A metaphor drawn from nature ennobles 
art. A metaphor drawn from art de- 



■ ' * 



Summer. 



on gray's elegy. 139 

grades nature. As Gray is known to^ 
have been learned, that " Science frown- 
ed not on his birth," may be said 
with truth, according to the usual ac- 
ceptation of the words, But phrases, 
such as " Fortune smiled on his birth,** 
H Science frown'd not on his birth," are 
become flat by usage. They were poeti- 
cal ; are now rhetorical ; and will soon 
be prosaic. 

He " who gives to misery all he has," 
when that all is a tear, may be free 
from the charge of hard-heartedness ; 
but will be affectedly denominated boun- 
tiful ; as his giving this kind of all, will 
he, with quaintness, called giving large- 
ly. " Recompence" is used improperly. 
Tor loss or suffering we make recom- 
pence, but for bounty we offer return : 
and we are not properly said to " dis- 
close" that, which by investigation we 
discover. " Merits and frailties reposing 
on the bosom of his Father, and his God/' 



140 CRITICISM 

Js an idea which Apprehension doubts if 
she has clearly made out : but if " Fa- 
ther" and " God" relate to the same Be- 
ing, the idea is pious, and the Elegy 
ends better than it begun. Meditation 
guides to Morality ; Morality inspires 
Religion ; and Religion swells out into 
Devotion. 

It is surprising that a writer like Gray 
should think the authority of Petrarch 
necessary for the justification of the ex- 
pression, " trembling hope f an expres- 
sion, which, though it has a little of the 
concetto in it, has it in less degree than 
several others he has used without scru- 
ple. But Gray was fond of Petrarch, 
and had no objection that his fondness 
should be known. In his Notes, he is 
ostentatious of authorities, in the de- 
fence of his expressions. Had it become 
expedient for him, on any occasion, to 
use the " joy of grief," he would, no 
doubt, have referred his reader to the 



©n gray's ELEGY. 141 

Pseudo-Gaelic Poems, which, at a par- 
ticular time, he wrought up his taste to 
relish, and almost his understanding to 
believe authentic. On the present oc- 
casion, there was no need to travel so 
far as Petrarch for an authority ; for 
what is the mode of speaking or writing 
that will not have its authority in the 
compositions of every language ? Pope's 
" trembling, hoping," was at hand. — 
Even the Portefolios of Tate and Bra- 
dy would have furnished him with " aw- 
ful mirth." 

Of the J stanza that Gray once pub- 
lished as part of this Elegy, and after- 
wards saw cause to withdraw, Criticism 
chooses to decline the examination, un- 
willing to shew eagerness to condemn 



1 There, scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year, 
By hands unseen, are showers of violets found ; 
The Red-breast loves to build and warble there, 
And little footsteps lightly print the ground. 



IM CRITICISM 

him, who has already condemned him- 
self. For the discontinuance of it in 
the after-editions, Mason has assigned 
this cause, that it was thought by 
its author to be awkwardly parenthe- 
tical. But there were other reasons that 
rendered it expedient that it should be 
suffered to slip out quietly. The same 
images, delineated, and assembled, near- 
ly in the same manner, are to be found 
in some of Collins' Pieces, published 
about 1746. I am aware that to fix imi- 
tation upon Gray, is not to bestow ori- 
ginality upon Collins. Some of Collins' 
images can be traced to Pope ; and some 
of Pope's, as well as Collins', to ages of 
high antiquity. " By foreign hands thy 
dying eyes were closed," &c. make part 
of the wailings of Electra in Sophocles, 
for the supposed death of Orestes : 
" The turf lying light on the breast/' 
(to which a ludicrous contrast is on re- 
cord) standing now so high in the list of 



on gray's elegy. 143 

elegiac common places, occurs in the 
Alcestis of Euripedes ; and Homer has 
made his Mountain Nymphs (the Fays 
of those times) plant elms, since sup- 
planted by flowers, around Eetion's grave. 
Property in fancy is like other property. 
Priority of appropriation must found the 
original right ; and of that priority our 
investigation must determine with the 
record. 

Of the writers to whom Gray has done 
homage for his tenure, I think Pope is 
not one. Let it not, however, be ima- 
gined, that, though nothing is acknow- 
ledged, nothing is owing. The " Elegy 
to the Memory of an unfortunate Lady/' 
has given to the " Elegy written in a 
Country Church-yard," many things both 
in the way of sentiment and design. 

The " storied urn' of Gray, is the 
" weeping Loves" of Pope ; and " ani- 
mated bust," is only an obscure expres- 



144 CRITICISM 

sion for Pope's " polished marble emu- 
lating the face." 

" What, though no sacred earth allow thee room, 
" Nor hallowed dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb V 

has furnished the perhaps improved idea 
expressed in 

• • • -Though mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise, 
Where, thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault, 
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 

That funeral honours, however scrupu- 
lously paid, cannot " back from its man- 
sion call the fleeting breath/' is also to 
be found in Pope, though stated in a 
different way : 

So, peaceful, rests without a stone, a name, 

What once had beauty, titles, wealth, and fame ;— 

A heap of dust alone remains of thee : 

'Tis all thou art ; and all the proud shall be ! 

" The morn bestowing her earliest tears ;" 
(poetical phraseology for dew) " the first 
roses of the year blowing/' &c. are 



on gray's elegy. 145 

images which both Collins and Gray 
thought worth gathering. 

******** 

Here Criticism is content to stop ; 
congratulating herself on the termina- 
tion of a labour irksome, but not over- 
whelming ; invidious, but not void of 
use. If she has descended into too mi- 
nute an examination, it has not been 
with a view to darken counsel, but to 
furnish light. Of fine writing, the per- 
fection is not so well promoted by ab- 
stract canons, as by individual illustra- 
tions ; by the inculcating what should be 
written, as by the examination of what 
has been written. The detection of par- 
ticular blemishes is more productive of 
good than the display of general perfec- 
tion. There is a common-weal in taste, 
as w r ell as in government. Minute and 
characteristical exhibitions, of errors as 
well as of excellence, are necessary for 



146 CRITICISM 

improvement* in both. Inde tibi, tuceque 
REiruBLiCiE, quod imitere, capias ; inde 
fcedum inceptu, fcedum exitu, quod 
vites. In the execution of this necessary 
task, Criticism finds herself engaged in 
much labour, and subjected to much 
self-denial : impeded by prejudice, and 
deterred by misconstruction* But the 
labour is honourable ; and the end use- 
ful. She is content to forget the hard- 
ships she has suffered ; and solace her- 
self with the view of the good she has 
done. 

In examining the Elegy written in a 
Country Church-yard, she has found 
much room for censure, and some room 
for praise. The Piece has been over- 
rated; and many serious persons, who 
meditate on death from a sense of duty, 
consider Conscience as concerned in 
their finding this Meditation perfect. Of 
perfections no doubt it contains some ; 
but it contains blemishes too .; and, if 



on gray's elegy. 14? 

Criticism grant it nothing but its merit, 
what will be its praise ? 

To rate that merit precisely, is perhaps 
not easy : but, where the premises are, 
the conclusion may be found. Those 
who are resolved to fortify themselves 
in the feeling which they have encou- 
raged themselves to entertain of its per- 
fections, may find many strong positions, 
in which they may maintain themselves, 
without immediate danger of being for- 
ced. The subject is serious ; the views in- 
teresting ; the thoughts tender ; the ver- 
sification, in general, smooth ; the lan- 
guage not unsuitable. The flights are 
sometimes bold ; often catching : and 
the execution often striking ; and some- 
times natural. But what, of all things, 
is likely to ensure this performance a 
lasting and general interest is. that it 
abounds with images which find a mir- 
rour in every mind, and with sentiments 
to which every bosom returns an echo. 



148 CRITICISM, &C. 

Where so many beauties are, room may 
be afforded for faults : of these, Criti- 
cism has not concealed what came in 
her way ; and, to such as may urge her 
to a farther search, she will content her- 
self with tendering, concerning the Ele- 
gy, the admonition which its writer has 
tendered concerning himself: 

NO FARTHER SEEK ITS MERITS TO DISCLOSE, 
NOR DRAW ITS FRAILTIES FROM THEIR DREAD 
ABODE 



F I N I S. 



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